Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro - my experience

Some of you have expressed curiosity/interest in my recent experience hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. So, I am going to start a new thread here to talk about it briefly. I am emboldened by Steve's comment that no one will get upset and the fact that the web site says "Mt. Whitney and ALL HIKING Q&A TOPICS".

For me the experience was intensely emotional. (Don't tell anyone, but) Once I reached the top at 8:15am on June 16 under intense blue skies I simply collapsed on the ground and cried like a baby for 5 minutes! Not sure why, but I simply had no control over the tears streaming down my face. I remember only 2 other prior occasions when I was moved to tears like that.

Having said that let me provide some practical information about hiking this peak. It is a very popular hike and probably the easiest of the "7 summits". Mt. Kilimanjaro has 3 peaks - Meru, Mawenzi and Uhuru. The tallest, commonly known as "Mt. Kilimanjaro" is Uhuru peak. It is the tallest in the African continent at 19340 ft and is the tallest free-standing mountain in the world - meaning, not part of any range - it juts straight out of the East African planes.

You can reach Kilimanjaro international airport from Amsterdam by KLM or fly in from Dubai (which is what I did).

I took the Machame route for the ascent and Mweka for descent - about 90km round trip. You are not allowed to come back the same way. It took me a total of 7 days - 5.5 days to the top and 1.5 days back down. My crew consisted of 5 porters, 1 cook and 1 guide. I was on Diamox starting a day before the hike and took it "slow" on the mountain - no rushing up even if your legs can do it - and drank nearly 4 liters of water per day. I was able to keep altitude sickness at bay. But you can feel the thin air because the simplest physical actions leave you short of breath. You need 0-degree rated sleeping bag, knee high gaters, rain jacket, rain pants, sturdy hiking poles, double-layerd gloves, layered clothing including thermals and fleece, plus parka to go over everything, balaclava, really good quality UV-protected (preferably polarized) sun glasses with side coverings (or just straight skiing goggles), sturdy water proof and comfortable & broken in hiking boots . But do not need crampons or ice-axe. Although I said that this is the "easiest" of the 7 summits, you will make a grave mistake if you underestimate this hike - it is guaranteed to truly test your enudrance to the limit - especially the final push to the summit when there is not much left in your tank after hiking in thin air for the last 5 days. I think I am in reasonably decent shape and completed it without any mishaps - still, once I got back down I simply lay flat on the bed in the hotel room for 36 hours straight like a zombie as the body slowly recovered from being literally wrung out on the mountain. But it was all more than worth it!

I can probably go on and on. But let me stop here. I can send pointers to some pictures if anyone is interested.

T2n

Definitely give us the pointers!

Kurt Wedberg at SMI guides on Kilimanjaro, too. (I'm sure that would be more expensive.)

Regarding the tears... it sometimes happens on Whitney too. And after running a marathon as well.

In 1994 my son and I used Mt Madness out of Seattle (Scott Fishers old company, now owned by someone else) We went up the Western Shira Plateau route which takes an extra day or two. But the slow pace gives you gradual altitude benefit. This route also has you camp in the inner crater(18,500'+) for the last night. Thus you get up at a reasonable hr (and not at 1 am,) eat breakfast and finish the summit climbing starting at 8 am. I took Diamox only because I knew I would regret it if I failed to summit, but my son did not take it.

I have been told that the weather is usually best the last part of August to mid September. We had 7 hikers, 31 porters, which included 3 cooks, a chief porter,2 guides and 1 armed guard the lst couple of days for protection from poachers (one did get an eland our lst day) and wild animals.

This is the cadillac of Mt trips and we actually found ourselves over trained in prep for Kili after climbing over 50 peaks over 14,000' in Colo, many of them several repeats. The porters essentially do everything for you, which of course you are paying for. Be sure to donate any clothing, shoes, boots etc after the trip is over as many of the porters hike in rubber tire sandals, thin well used clothes and are very appreciative of your extras. The lst day I picked the porter with the biggest feet and told him my boots and running shoes would be his after the trip. I wear size 13-14 and I suspect he was only an 11, but he jumped at the chance to be my porter.

Scott Fisher's company in Seattle is now called Mountain Madness.

I can't agree more that the porters are really impressive. They barely have any protective gear to speak of, carry over 3 times the weight of our day pack and walk at least twice as fast as us. In my opinion they have a very tough job and don't get paid nearly enough by the tour companies. So, besides donating your used equipment, plan to tip them handsomely - they depend on those tips quite heavily.

I met some folks at the Kili hotel who were doing the crater route. Sounds really fun. I will probably do that with my kids once they are older and able to tackle a hike like this!

T2n

I knew that, must have taken my Stupid Pills this morning. Thanks for catching it.
I was thinking of Mt Travel Sobek which has Kili climbs too. Also REI Kili trips are probably fairly economical too.

Bear in mind the Tanzanian Park People charge you by the length (days) of your trip. Thus the Western Shira Plateau will cost more than the usual tourist routes since it takes longer, but I definitely recommend that route as you will see less people, enjoy different scenery & you will descend down one of the normal tourist routes. We came down the Mweka Route which as I recall was fairly steep and muddy in places.

Here are some photos from my recent Kili hike experience via the Machame route in June'10:

http://picasaweb.google.com/shubhonag1/KiliHikeAlbum?authkey=Gv1sRgCOOihv2h5OnviwE#

Enjoy!

Fantastic info. I am tentatively planning a trip next Summer on the Lemosha route, which I think is the western plateau route that someone wrote about. Really appreciate the leads re outfitters, routes, etc. Am thinking of using Ultimate Kilimanjaro, which is a U.S. based outfit that contracts with local company (I suspect Zara) and seems to charge only a minimal $200 markup, a bit more budget oriented than Mountain Madness. They focus on small, custom groups, though they do have some prescheduled 8-person group tours. Perhaps someone has experience with Ultimate Kilimanjaro or Zara?

Thanks for those pictures! Looks like it was a great, fun experience. Must have been fun meeting people from various corners of the world, too.

I started initially with Zara and then switched to Kilele Afrika. It is my understanding that Zara is not local either - they are based in England (Manchester, I think) - at least that's what the contact person told me on the phone and I spoke with her twice in great detail about their Kili programs and safari's.

Lemosho is an excellent choice!

T2n