Shattering female stereotypes at Kilimanjaro

Members of the team enjoy their time at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Provided to China Daily

What can middle-aged professional women do after work? Visit the hair-dresser or go shopping?

How about traveling to Africa and climbing the peak of Kilimanjaro?

At the end of February, 12 Chinese women between 37 and 54, from different professions including a partner in a law firm, a TV producer and entrepreneurs, spent over 120 hours climbing to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

Dubbing themselves "the first amateur women's mountaineering team in China", they have begun to plan their next adventures climbing the highest mountains on other continents.

Wang Jianmei, 43, editor-in-chief of a tourism magazine in Beijing, the organizer of the special climbing team, proposed the trip because she saw the growing need of professional women in big cities.

"Women like us handle career and family well, but sometimes we feel so stressed and exhausted that we have a strong desire to escape from routine life and discover ourselves, in a totally different ways," Wang says.

Due to altitude sickness, two members quit at 4,600 meters. The remaining 10 women set out in the windy night, tramped over rocky cliffs and advanced through a sudden hailstorm. Finally, they reached the snow-covered Uhuru summit, the highest point of Kilimanjaro.

The 10 women, like other climbers who reach the summit, received certificates from the Kilimanjaro national park.