AT A BAR IN ARUSHA, TANZANIA the night before Remi Drozd ’02 was set to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, a trail guide told him two hikers died the day before in a blizzard near the summit. Drozd and fellow climbers, Andrew Stone ’02 and David “D.J.” Hewey ’05, both former presidents of Union’s Outing Club, were shaken by the story but remained undeterred.

“We hear this story and say, ‘This is pretty serious stuff. We’ve got to be careful and make good decisions up there,’” Stone recalled.

The threesome, joined by friends Brian Kulig and Cindy Keller, had by then completed two safaris, visited Amboseli National Park in Kenya, and Tanzania’s Lake Manyara National Park and Ngorongoro Crater during what was a three-week trip to Africa last December and January. The three alumni credited studying abroad and Outing Club adventures at Union College as the springboard behind their trip and six-day climb up Africa’s highest peak.

“Running the Outing Club shaped who I am today. I was able to be creative and invent new trips. I learned that if you let people be creative and run individual trips, the club ends up running itself,” Stone wrote in an e-mail message.

In 2000 Drozd completed a summer term abroad in London, Holland and Hungary studying national health systems with Professor Robert Baker, who specializes in bioethics. That’s where Drozd said he caught “the traveling bug.” In fall 2003, Hewey studied at Queensland University in Brisbane, Australia. The program is jointly run by Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Union. Stone completed a mini-term in France in 2001.

Mount Kilimanjaro, nicknamed ‘Kili,’ is located south of the Tanzania-Kenya border near the equator and close to the continent’s eastern coast. The group flew by plane From Boston to Amsterdam to Nairobi, Kenya and traveled by bus and taxi cab while in Africa. During the trip through Africa, they slept in hotels and tents. As Stone did while planning hiking trips for the Outing Club, he read extensively and outlined the group’s adventurous vacation, which cost each traveler about $5,000. That’s a fair price considering the range of activities and length of the trip. The guided hike up Kilimanjaro cost about $850.

As Stone did while planning hiking trips for the Outing Club, he read extensively and outlined the group’s adventurous vacation, which cost each traveler about $5,000. That’s a fair price considering the range of activities and length of the trip. The guided hike up Kilimanjaro cost about $850.

Stone, 27, is an electrical engineer at Draper Labs in Cambridge, Mass. Drozd, 26, is a medical student at the University of New England’s College of Osteopathic Medicine near Portland, Maine. Hewey is a 23-year-old former manufacturing engineer who lives in Portland. The three lived together in a house off Nott Street dubbed the “Union College Outdoors Club” during the 2001-02 academic year. That school year they summited the 5,300-footMount Marcy in the Adirondack Park.

And more recently the three nearly summited the 14,260-foot Longs Peak in the Rocky Mountains. That climb was good training but did not cause the acute high-altitude sickness the three encountered on the last leg up Kilimanjaro. The mountain’s gently sloping trail is easy for experienced and fit climbers, but problems lie in the thin air.

“A lot of us wanted to get off the mountain. You’d take three steps forward and you’d have to catch your breath. The last day of the climb was incredibly difficult,” Stone said.

About two-thirds of those who climb higher than 8,000 to 10,000 feet suffer from mountain sickness, also called high-altitude sickness, caused by a lack of oxygen. Symptoms of common mountain sickness include headache, poor appetite, nausea and dizziness. Though rare, some climbers who ascend too quickly or sleep at high altitudes suffer from life-threatening lung problems or brain tissue swelling. Lungs can fill with fluid and hinder breathing. Brain tissue swelling can cause confusion, loss of coordination and changes in behavior. The best treatment for both is quick descent. The rule on Kilimanjaro is “climb high, camp low,” Stone said.

The group stayed in rented nylon tents laid out near four huts along the less-traveled Machame route. They wore their own cold-weather clothing that had been kept in the large backpacks each took to Africa. The guides and porters cooked eggs, sausage and bad-tasting porridge for breakfast. They also made a packed lunch and cooked chicken dinners.

Shortly after midnight on the fifth day of the trip, the group set out from summit camp at 15,000 feet. The blizzard conditions of the prior week had passed and temperatures were hovering around zero. They reached the mountain’s crater rim by 6 a.m., where Drozd succumbed to the effects of high-altitude sickness. Ever the doctor, he told himself that “acute changes in pressure had caused his brain tissue to swell and triggered a vomiting spell.”

“He got to the crater rim—and Remi’s in good shape—and he lies down. He vomited to the left, he vomited to the right and spun around and vomited again. He pulled himself up and hiked the rest of the way to the top,” Stone said.

Before dawn, light from the village of Moshi located thousands of feet below was visible. As the sun rose, the group walked toward the summit on a snow packed trail like zombies in a B movie. Drozd pulled out a digital camera and filmed a 360-degree view.

The friends celebrated briefly at the summit before descending. They slid like children on a snow hill down about 3,500 feet and hiked a bit lower before their final night of camping. They walked off the mountain the next day and relaxed for the next week while staying at a beachside bungalow on the resort island of Zanzibar.

When Hewey returned to New England, his hometown newspaper, The Eagle Tribune, featured him in a front page story. He told the Haverhill, Mass. paper: “I went on a backpacking trip during my freshman year [at Union College], and it was instantly addictive. It was an incredible and spiritual experience. Some people run in marathons; I hike mountains.”

Stone says the threesome have targeted Alaska’s 20,320-foot Mount McKinley in Denali National Park for their next major climb.