Gorge
My Journey Up Kilimanjaro at 300 Pounds

A raw story? Try blisteringly raw story. Have you ever sat with someone who had no problem recounting an embarrassing personal story that you would take to your grave had it happened to you? That's what it's like to read Kara Richardson Whitely's book. I read it because she didn't wait to get to the......more

As an overweight hiker, I really connected to this book. Even though I'm about half the size of Kara and don't have her kind of disordered eating/emotional baggage with food, I still experience a lot of what she does as an overweight hiker. I'm often the heaviest person on the trail, and being all g......more

Someone else described this book in a review as "raw." That's a pretty good word to describe it. This author is certainly brutally honest as she describes her eating and weight issues, her personal problems, her reactions to others around her, and her life. Almost to an embarrassing point. I suppose......more

Kara Whitely had made it to the summit of Kilimanjaro once before and had tried and failed a second time. This is the story of her third attempt. I liked the premise of the book, that fitness is not about body shape or weight and that physical challenges can be cathartic and life changing, but I had......more

Inspiring and encouraging. I'm a lot like Kara....strong, able and ready to try anything but not always the picture you would expect to see. I've always jokingly called myself "the amazon" to throw off the fact that I'm too tall and too heavy. Loved feeling welcomed into my own head by someone else......more