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Kudos go out -- and up -- to NBC news anchorwoman Ann Curry on Mount Kilimanjaro.
Curry turned 52 yesterday (Wednesday) as she ascended the 19,341-foot mountain in Tanzania, Africa, as part of a "Today Show" week-long focus on the effects of climate change throughout the world.
Curry is the regular news anchor on "Today." Host Matt Lauer was in Belize, host Meredith Vieria was in Australia, and weatherman Al Roker was in Iceland.
Their "Ends of the Earth" series focused on the changing climate and its detrimental effects in various parts of the globe. Curry's mission was to show Kilimanjaro's receding glacier fields
Curry and her climbing team were scheduled to reach the summit tomorrow in time to coincide with the "Today" morning broadcast, but she announced on this morning's show that the team made the decision to stop their climb at about 15,700 feet because everyone was suffering from acute altitude sickness.
She said in yesterday's broadcast report that, even if they didn't summit, they accomplished what they set out to do by showing the visual evidence of how far the glaciers and snow fields have retreated from the mountain because of climate change with 80 percent of the glaciers having disappeared in 20 years. The report made no claim as to whether the climate change is man-made or occurring naturally.
Sure, the Kilimanjaro climb is as much a publicity stunt as it is a news report, but the fact remains that Curry has had to get herself up the mountain as far as she did. She has a lot of help to carry a lot of gear, but no one's carrying her up that mountain and for that she deserves props.
She reportedly only had three weeks to prepare for the trip and the climb.
"This is like climbing a Stairmaster for six hours a day with 20 pounds on your back," Curry said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press. The last mountain she climbed half the size, and she did it while in college.
An "NBC Nightly News" report last night about the climb:
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