The Clearing

Who it is for

Women who have carried everyone, and set themselves down somewhere along the way.

The leader, the founder, the mother, the one everyone leans on. Capable, respected, and quietly running on a self she put aside years ago. The Clearing is for the woman ready to stop coping and start choosing: to face who she truly is, out loud, and to lead her own life from there.

It is leadership and coping work in equal measure, a hybrid of recovery and rebirth. Demanding, warm, and done entirely in the company of women.

The premise

You cannot see the wood for the trees until the wood lets you.

Kilimanjaro takes away the roles, the phone and the endless managing of other people's needs. What is left, in the thin air, is you and a small circle of women doing the same honest work. By the time the forest gives way to open ground, so does something inside. You come down having met yourself, and decided what she does next.

The journey

Break down. Rebuild. Re-enter.

The climb is not the achievement. It is a deliberate breakdown, and the breakdown is the point. Most women arrive having built themselves around everyone else's needs. On the mountain, day by day, that falls away. This is the journey we take you on, and every part of it is designed.

One · The breakdown

You begin in comfort and climb into the thin air, and the mountain quietly takes away the roles, the managing and the holding-it-together. By the higher camps there is nothing left to perform, and that is where the honest work with your leaders begins. It can feel like coming apart. It is meant to.

Two · The rebuild

You do not summit and fly home. After the top we bring you down into five-star comfort and open the most important days of the trip: retreat, reset and re-entry. With Shereen and her co-leader you rebuild, deliberately, around the woman you actually are and what she wants next. What the climb stripped away, you put back on purpose, or you leave on the mountain.

Three · The re-entry

You go home rebuilt, not raw. No woman is sent back into her life still in pieces. You re-enter as yourself, out loud, with the work integrated and leaders who stay with you afterwards.

Your leaders

Meet all our coaches →

The expedition

Twelve days on the ground.

The Clearing runs one day longer than the men's expeditions, giving even more room for the integration work that makes the change hold. The route follows the same acclimatisation-first path up Kilimanjaro, with the summit and a full reset built in before you fly home. Shereen and her co-leader are with you throughout, with guided sessions and exercises each morning and evening.

What is included

Everything from the moment you land to the moment you leave.

A fully held, five-star experience wrapped around a serious climb. One price covers the coaching, the comfort, the mountain and the care.

The coaching

Two women leading you for the whole journey, not a briefing at the start and a handshake at the end. Daily coaching sessions and guided exercises, morning and evening, on the trail and in camp, structured to carry you through the breakdown and the rebuild. A full aftercare programme continues once you are home.

The comfort

Nights in five-star lodges before and after the climb: proper beds, spa facilities, fine dining and deep rest, so you arrive acclimatised and unhurried and leave restored rather than wrecked. Time to relax and be properly nourished, so the only hard thing you do is the part that matters.

The mountain

The full guided ascent of Kilimanjaro, all park, rescue and conservation fees, all meals and drinking water on the mountain, and the retreat and integration days built into the itinerary.

The care

Delivered on Vertical Sky's mountain operations: fairly paid, wilderness-first-responder guides, supplementary oxygen and twice-daily health checks around every climber.

The investment

$14,995 per place

• 20 percent deposit secures your place
• Balance of 80 percent due ten weeks before departure
• Payment plans available on request

Travel insurance with cancellation cover is a condition of joining, so the risk sits with your policy rather than your deposit.

The cohort

Two leaders, a circle of women.

The Clearing runs with two women leading from the start, so the group is held closely throughout. Places are limited to keep it intimate. This is a small circle who will know each other honestly by the summit, and who tend to hold each other long after the mountain.

Held on the mountain

The Clearing is transformation through challenge and fellowship, not therapy. It is delivered on Vertical Sky's mountain operations, with fairly paid, wilderness-first-responder guides, supplementary oxygen and twice-daily health checks around every climber. You are pushed, and you are looked after. Both are the point.