Wheelchair-Confined NJ Man Returns From Mt. Kilimanjaro Trek

MORRIS COUNTY, NJ — The Morris County man who summited Mount Kilimanjaro has returned safely after dominating what he called “my impossible.”

Jeff Harmon, of Boonton Township, has been in a wheelchair since 2017 due to a neurological disease called Adrenomyeloneuropathy, or AMN. While the disease has taken away the use of his legs, it has not taken away his courageous and determined spirit.

In September, after months of rigorous training, Harmon and his team of 32 other brave souls climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa at 19,340 feet.

Related: Wheelchair-Confined NJ Man To Climb Mount Kilimanjaro

The group made it just past Stella Point, which is nearly 19,000 feet above sea level. The group didn’t make the mountain’s ultimate summit, where the signage marking Uhuru Peak is, instead making the “hard decision” to turn around as the sun set and the risks of climbing in the dark came into play.

When asked if he was sure about turning around, Harmon said, “It was never about that sign.”

“The sign would’ve been great if all the things would have been ideal,” Harmon said in a social media post. “But it was never about that sign.”

Harmon said the earlier-than-expected end to the journey got him thinking about the “man-made summits” that he faces in life, and whether these obstacles truly need to be conquered, or if they already have been.

Harmon recalled a moment during the climb when his team encountered a portion of zig-zagging trails that allowed no possibility of a shortcut. “Slow was the way,” he thought, and for hours during the journey, he thought of how “no shortcuts” applied in life.

“Slow is the way, there are no shortcuts… That just deeply affected me, how I look at life, because I’m a shortcut kinda guy,” he said. “I like to find the comfortable way of doing things, and (I’ve) just come back with this realization that ‘slow is the way and there are no shortcuts.’”

Harmon was thankful for several aspects of the journey, including his “My Impossible” team, the Tanzanian porters and guides, everyone at home who supported him, and, of course, the fact that he didn’t suffer from altitude sickness.

“This was the hardest, and most fulfilling, but the hardest thing that I have ever been a part of,” Harmon said. “The thoughts and the expectations that we had going in, that I had going in, about what the mountain would present to us and what this journey would be like were absolutely blown out of the water by the reality of the mountain.”

To learn more about “My Impossible” and Harmon’s trek, visit the nonprofit’s website here.