Anne Lorimor lives in the Phoenix area, and she's 85 years old and a great-grandmother. But she’s not your average great-grandmother: Lorimor spends her time climbing. In July, Lorimor, her nephew Kevin Gordon and other hikers spent eight days climbing to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Lorimor is believed to be the oldest woman to reach the top, and she's in the process of getting the record certified by Guinness World Records. We talked with Lorimor about her journey and the driving force behind it.

How did the Kilimanjaro climb come to be?
I’ve been wanting to climb it for a long time, and I met this man at CEO Space [a business development group] who is the oldest person to have climbed the Seven Summits [the highest peaks on each of the seven continents], and he was putting together an expedition to Kilimanjaro, and I thought it’d be wonderful to do. Well, we got delayed for a year, and then I suddenly realized I’d be the oldest woman to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I thought, Why not do it to benefit my fund? That would be combining my passions: my care for disadvantaged kids and my love of climbing. So that’s what we decided to do.

What was the climbing schedule like?
We did about three to five hours of hiking each day to get from one tent to another. But then we would do a climb to take us a little higher up the mountain, let us be there for a while and sort of get our blood ready for it, and then go back down to our camp for the night.

Did you run into any problems?
The slow people started off Day 6 at 10 o’clock. They started up Kilimanjaro for the final climb on what was called the Rongai route. The other people started at 12. During that time, we managed to hike about 20 hours out of 24. It got very, very cold. One of the people up there said it was 8 below zero during the coldest hours of the night that we were doing that hike.

I ran into trouble right at the beginning of Day 7. I began to shiver; I think I was getting a touch of hypothermia. I began to shiver from deep inside me, and I just couldn’t stop. Kevin, my nephew, and the guides just took and kind of clasped me and held me close like a human sandwich to give me their body heat.

What were the best and worst moments of the trip?
I honestly cannot say that getting to the top was the best experience, because I was just too tired to enjoy it. Afterward, I really appreciated it. I think the worst one was when I was so close to getting out, when I was about to freeze to death. I really credit them with saving my life, because what I had was not keeping me warm and we made it work. The best experience … I think the guides and porters were just wonderful. They were so helpful.

Tell us more about your fund and why it's important to you.
I have this fund, Challenge Youth Fund, that I started in 2004, and what it’s supposed to do is help disadvantaged kids. I focus on homeless, foster and orphaned children. I want to help them get the tools they need and help them know what their options are to get to where they want to be. My motto is "A hand up, but not a handout."

When I was a child, there was a time when we were homeless, and after we got out, we lived pretty primitively in a tent with a dirt floor and no plumbing and no electricity. So, you know, I know how it is. My family has all done pretty well. We were lucky that my mother was an educated woman. I think that makes a lot of difference, when you know there’s possibilities for you. When I was ready for high school, the person that had been my second-grade teacher paid my tuition at a boarding school in California. She saw potential in me, and I want to pay that forward. The charitable efforts are a three-generation thing with my family. My grandfather took in five orphans when an orphanage [was] sold, and he brought them up with the help of my grandmother and aunt. And my parents had a children’s home and school in rural New Mexico, and even as a very little girl I’d help with the baby orphans.

How did you prepare for the climb?
I just climbed Mummy Mountain in Phoenix every day with my dog for about a year. I’ve always loved climbing. I moved to rural New Mexico when I was a little girl, and I used to climb around all the time. In 2006, I climbed Pikes Peak and then four others over 14,000 feet around that same time. I’ve climbed Ayers Rock in Australia; I did that just after a course of chemotherapy — I had lymphoma — and that was one of the hardest ones I ever did, being the condition I was in. I climbed the Great Pyramid in Cairo, I’ve climbed the pyramid in Mexico City; I’ve climbed a lot of mountains around the West and in southern Mexico. I just enjoy it. I’m not a professional; I just enjoy doing it.

What’s planned next for the great-grandmother some call crazy?
I’m planning to do a sky dive. Then we’re talking about hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim. And another idea that came to us recently is, we think in 2017 we’ll go and do the Appalachian Trail. I’d also like to go back and climb Mount Kilimanjaro again and become the oldest person to do it. We’ve got plans.

To learn more about Lorimor's climb or to donate to her fund, visit www.annekiliclimb.com.

— Kirsten Kraklio