From Smithtown to Mount Kilimanjaro, a journey for a friend, and others

Skull-pounding headaches, nausea, the life-threatening twists and turns climbing Africa's highest peak — it was all worth it, says Emma Ehrhard, of Smithtown, who reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro late last month.

She raised about $8,500 in donations for pediatric cancer research in the process.

Ehrhard, 21, climbed with a group of 12 others, none of whom she knew. But someone else was with her, at least in spirit, Ehrhard told Newsday, recounting what spurred her to push through to the top, 19,340 feet above sea level, according to the National Geographic Society.

It was Ethan, her always fun-loving childhood friend, the one she would spend hours with while they wandered Ehrhard's Smithtown neighborhood, until cancer took his life at 13.

Nearly a decade has passed since he died and sometimes, "losing a friend when you're young is that you get to a point where you ... miss them more than you remember them, in a way," said Ehrhard, a 2024 graduate of Stony Brook University.

Climbing to help fund the fight against disease that killed her friend brought back the memories.

"It felt like Ethan was still with me ... I brought his hat with me, and some bracelets from fundraising events when he was still with us," Ehrhard said. "And I kind of tugged on that on my wrist on the way up, whenever I was kind of like ‘I need to sit down…’"

Ehrhard and the others in the group raised money on behalf of the B+ (Be Positive) Foundation, which provides financial aid and other services to the families of children with cancer.

Ehrhard said she received an email last summer from the charity advertising the Mount Kilimanjaro climb.

"It felt like the perfect time to really commit to something, to reconnect with my friend and to stay involved with the B+ Foundation," she said.

Ehrhard trained for the climb by hiking local trails. If she could not hike outside due to poor weather conditions, she would climb on a StairMaster with a weighted backpack. 

Ehrhard said she took medications to deal with altitude sickness, a condition in which people experience headaches, nausea, shortness of breath and other symptoms at higher altitudes than their bodies are used to.

"It feels like ... your skull is a cage that your brain is trying to throb out of ..." Ehrhard said of the headaches she experienced.

Her group usually woke up at 6 a.m. to start getting ready for the day’s journey. After hiking for several hours in the morning, they would have a quick lunch break, Ehrhard said, until the climbers would hit the trail again to make it to the next camp.

There are several different routes to hike Mount Kilimanjaro, but Ehrhard’s group followed the Lemosho Route, which took them eight days to complete.

Ehrhard's motivation, coupled with her months of training, the strangers who became friends on the climb, meant it was never a question whether she would make it to the top of the mountain.

One of Ehrhard’s group members was Hugh McLaughlin, a program manager for the B+ Foundation. He and his wife chose to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for their honeymoon, according to the organization’s webpage.

Ehrhard said another group member's daughter also climbed in honor of someone close — her friend's daughter, who died of osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer.

The moment she reached the summit, Erhard said, was surreal and bittersweet.

" ... It was a little sad in that it was like, we made this push because others, you know, couldn't keep pushing," she said. "But, it was really rewarding for all of us to make it [to the top]."

Ehrhard said that altogether, the group raised just shy of $90,000 so far through donations on the B+ Foundation’s website.

"This [hike] was a perfect way to just reconnect with [Ethan] after so long," she said.