While our guests were relaxing on the coast during the cosy season or getting a taste of the capital city air in Berlin, our Upstalsboom trainees were facing a completely different "time out". They spent months getting fit and training for the ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro (now affectionately known as "Kili" among Upstalsboomers): In January 2016, ten trainees climbed Kilimanjaro together with our Managing Director Bodo Janssen. You read that right! They went high up. 5,895 metres, to be precise. Why did they embark on this adventure? Everyone had their own motives and motivations. One common goal, however, was to get to know their limits and to push them - each for themselves and all together. Bodo Janssen, however, wanted to encourage young people to break away from everyday life and take on challenges that would demand everything from them.

It was about self-awareness and developing potential. All of the participants brought their very own prerequisites with them, grew beyond themselves on this hike and overcame supposed limits and obstacles. Of course, training was needed to ensure that everyone really reached the top. Together with extreme sportsman Hubert Schwarz, we therefore developed a programme for our trainees that challenged and encouraged our youngsters to the maximum. All participants had a personalised training plan and were supervised and advised.

Incidentally, the group was accompanied by ffn radio presenter Axel Einemann. He also got fit and therefore climbed the Zugspitze together with the Upstalsboomers at the end of September 2015 as part of his preparation. The almost 3,000 metre high mountain was a small taster, altitude training and a foretaste of what awaited the brave mountaineers in Tanzania. It remained exciting, as no one had ever had such an experience before. And it wasn't just about the physical challenge. Even more important was the will to make it. Or as trainee Marie Koch from the Upstalsboom Hotel meerSinn on the island of Rügen put it: "Once I've climbed Kilimanjaro, the excuse 'I can't do it' will never be valid again."