'I kept my fingers crossed that we could get through it:' Senator Brewer Describes Hike up Kilimanjaro

Five Nebraska state senators concluded their climb up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania Thursday.

A simple text saying “summit” was sent as the five senators reached the highest peak in Africa. The team returned to the flat ground on Thursday Nebraska time.

Republican Senator Tom Brewer planned the climb before four others asked to tag along. Anna Wishart, Justin Wayne, Dave Murman, and Ben Hansen are two democrats and two republicans, respectively, in the officially nonpartisan Legislature. They are diverse racially as well as in political philosophy. Brewer is Native American and a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and Senator Wayne is part African American, while the other three are white.

Brewer said the Nebraska group hiked up the mountain alongside a much more limber group of people compared to themselves.

“This was not a group of spring chickens,” Brewer said. “They had the Netherland soccer team that was climbing at the same time we were, but, you know, everyone’s 19, 20, 21-years-old, so when they moved out, they moved out with a lot of spirit, and we bantered back and forth because we would pass each other on the trail.”

Following the climb up the 19,000-foot mountain, Brewer and his team are drinking lots of water and resting. Kilimanjaro poses multiple other challenges due to blistering temperatures at the base and below zero conditions at the top. Despite two days of forecasted snow, Brewer said no snow fell on their journey, and he’s grateful everyone made it up and down safely.

“There’s a lot of points where there wasn’t a lot of room for error. If you slip, you’re going to go a long ways over a very steep cliff,” Brewer said, “and I knew that if somebody was severely injured or hurt on the trip, it kind of would take away from the whole experience, so, you know, I really kept my fingers crossed that we could get through it.”

A medical team assisted the hikers by checking their blood oxygen levels, blood pressure and pulse every morning and night. The state legislators climbed for about nine hours each day.

Brewer, a military veteran and purple heart recipient, said over text message that physically, the demands required to scale Kilimanjaro were similar to Army Special Forces’ School, which focuses on teamwork and pushing through physical barriers.

The five senators will return to Nebraska next Tuesday.