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Dermatologists are always looking for novel ways to drive home the message of sun protection—but it’s safe to say that Manhattan’s Ellen Marmur, M.D. has set the bar particularly high. Her ambitious plan for raising awareness came to her as she was preparing for the adventure of a lifetime: this summer’s climb up Mount Kilimanjaro. “UV intensity is so much worse at [high altitudes],” she explains of launching her own fundraising initiative, “Skin Cancer, Take a Hike!,” earlier this year in anticipation of the challenging outdoor trip. Conceived as the first in a series of annual hikes that will raise money for the American Academy of Dermatology’s SPOT Skin Cancer initiative, the donations (totaling more than $140,000 to date) will help build shade structures and provide skin exams across the country.
For Marmur, the key to withstanding a week under the powerful rays that shine down on Tanzania’s most famous peak was a well-edited mix of sun-shielding clothing, which—as her travel diary illustrates—includes everything from a Lululemon shirt with knuckle-grazing sleeves to Coolibar hats with breezy neck flaps. When it came to her arsenal of sunscreens, you name it—tinted face lotion (EltaMD), solid stick (Banana Boat), antioxidant-spiked cream (Previse), bug-repellant SPF spray (BullFrog), long-lasting sport formula (SkinCeuticals)—she brought it.
Preparing for the climb itself was another matter entirely. Marmur, who usually trains with Manhattan–based fitness pro Thomas Heath, began shaking up her workouts more than a year ago, shifting from exercises that use her own body weight to more heavy-duty strength training: “pushing metal sleds, pulling a harness full of weights, or doing the rowing machine,” she said. All of this—coupled with shooting hoops in the nearby parks—helped target “all kinds of ancillary muscles so that my balance was good for climbing.” Then, starting this spring, she switched to a combination of yoga with Abigail DeVine and daylong hikes on the weekends. “I’d forgotten that there is so much incredible nature right around us,” Marmur said, singling out nearby Bear Mountain, an hour’s drive from New York City, for practice climbs. She streamlined her diet, too, paring down the animal proteins and ramping up the vegetables, nuts, and fruit.
It all paid off on July 24—day six on Kilimanjaro—when Marmur’s team of eleven (plus as many guides) set off at midnight for the summit. The final seven-hour stretch of the climb was in utter darkness, the tiny lights of their headlamps mingling with the field of stars ahead. “The guides sang in Swahili to us the entire time, these beautiful songs,” Marmur said. At the peak, called Uhuru, the group unfurled a garland of orange ribbons, each dedicated to someone affected by skin cancer, as the bright sun rose behind them in the sky.
Above, a history of her trip in pictures.
For more information about donating to skin-cancer awareness, visit marmurmedical.com or skincancertakeahike.com.
The post Making It to the Top of Mount Kilimanjaro: Dermatologist Ellen Marmur’s Photo Diary appeared first on Vogue.
