Climbing Kilimanjaro

I am pretty fit, so when the logistics coordinator of our climb group for Mt Kilimanjaro told us that it would be the hardest thing we had ever done, I was a little skeptical.

Could it seriously compare to cycling 300km around Paris in a day, the 200km/4000m climbing of the Alpine Classic bike ride or beating my sherpa to the top of the Tserko Ri in Nepal?

Four days later at 1 a.m. staring up into the never-ending blackness of the mountain, watching the headtorches of 200 other climbers snake up into the freezing cold darkness, I had my answer: I have never done anything harder. This was something extraordinary that we only push ourselves through a few times in our lives.

Climbing Kilimanjaro is an incredible experience: a huge challenge and a great achievement. There is beautiful scenery, great camaraderie with your climbing partners, gratefulness to your team of guides and porters and dust, dust, dust. We climbed the Rongai route, which crosses the mountain from north to south and it was just epic.

The Rongai is a strongly recommended route as there are fewer climbers than on other routes and the more modest elevation gains makes acclimatisation better.

We were walking with the African Walking Company who were exceptionally organised and highly recommended by many people. We'd certainly recommend them. It is not possible directly with African Walking Company and we booked our trip through Africa Travel Resource and they were brilliant. Great service and seamless travel connections - everywhere we went, ATR had someone waiting for us and there to make sure we made the right travel connections and that we had arrived as planned. Even though they are based in England, it was very easy to deal them, even from abroad.

Day 1: Nalemeru Gate (1950m) to Moorland Camp (2700m)

The northern side of the mountain is typically drier than the south, so the first few days go up through some pretty dry conditions. It's a two hour drive from Marangu to the park gate for the Rongai Route.

Once at the gate you meet your guides as the Head Guide organisers the porters (who argue about the loads they have to carry - strictly limited to 15kg each).

Up through pine forest to camp 1 (Moorland Camp) we settled in and were a bit surprised by the constant arrival of many many other groups. By evening the camp was completely full - there were at least 200 people with sleeping tents and mess tents everywhere. Total chaos. Even our guides were shocked by the huge number of people, but fortunately it wasn't to last.

Tip for the day: If you are climbing Kili on this route, definitely buy some knee-length gaitors and wear them from the start. The dirt and dust is very deep for the first 2 hours of the climb and you will end up far cleaner and happier if you've got gaitors on.

Day 2: Moorland Camp (2700m) to Kikelelwa Caves (3600m)

We're in our sleeping bags, it's 5 a.m. and still dark and suddenly we can hear shouting in the darkness. Voices of staff of one of the other camps are yelling frantically and we start to freak out. Is it a landslide? Are we being attacked? What the hell is going on?

Outside it is freezing cold and one of the others in our team tells us there has been a gas fire amongst one of the other camps. Fortunately it was quickly controlled.

Each morning and each afternoon, AWC's guides provide you with a tub of steaming hot water for your 'Washi washi'. It can be pretty tough stripping down to undergarments in order to have a little wash either before or after the day's activities, but you become very happy to have it.

The day's hike climbs very gradually. Lunch is at 'Second Cave' and there are spectacular views of Kilimanjaro's flat topped crater almost all day long - it is temptingly close and deceptively far away.

The vegetation thins out a bit from Second Cave onwards - mostly just low shrubs and bushes and plenty of dust. More than half the huge group from the first camp stopped at Second Cave to camp for the night, so we finally feel a little more in the wilderness. Our team pushed on to Kikelelwa Caves, essentially just traversing across the lower slopes of the mountain to reach our camp for the evening.

Tip for the day: Drink heaps of water and take Diamox tablets. Puritans may want to climb the mountain without assistance of altitude medication (trust me, I wanted to as well) but anything you can do to improve your chances to summiting you should take. Drinking water is the first thing that will get you to the summit but considering how much it costs to climb Kili, you shouldn't hesitate to use every tool at your disposal to make it to the summit. Altitude medication should be part of your Kili toolkit.

Day 3: Kikelelwa Caves (3600m) to Mawenzi Tarn (4330m)

AWC are brilliant - there is always plenty of food, especially at breakfast although our team wasn't terribly fond of porridge (which unfortunately is also scientifically proven to be the best high-energy, easy to digest breakfast you can get for exercise).

From Kikelelwa the path goes straight up and it is a solid climb for 3-4 hours. If you don't feel the cold too much, shorts and gaitors are more than sufficient for this day's climb. Vegetation is down to grasses and all morning you stare up at the rugged and beautiful Mawenzi mountain (5149m), Kilimanjaro's twin mountain. We were actually heading away from Kili itself this day, but it's all in the name of acclimatisation.

After lunch the guides took us for an acclimatisation walk higher up above the little lake that sits beside the Mawenzi Tarn campsite. After this a few of us were feeling pretty sick (headache, nausea) so started on Diamox. It's not worth risking your chances of getting to the top, so take it if you can!

Once again, African Walking Company were great. Very thorough in making sure we were acclimatising properly through appropriate walks etc. This is the advantage of going with a reputable company, even if they cost a little more - do not compromise on your company as this will certainly compromise your chances of success!

Tip for today: An interesting tip about food culture in Tanzania: whilst it is not impolite for food to be left in the dishes on the table and not finished, it is considered impolite if you have put food on your plate and not finished it.

This is particularly important in camp as any leftovers in the dishes will always be finished either by guides or porters. So make sure you only put on your plate what you intend to eat.

Day 4: Mawenzi Tarn (4330m) to Kibo Hut (4700m)

My headache had lifted by morning, most likely thanks to a double dose of Diamox, and our team settled into the mess tent for breakfast. Altitude can be an appetite killer and several of us had lost ours, managing to get down a little porridge, eggs and bacon before heading off for the day.

After crossing a couple of little hills you reach 'the saddle'. This is the 5km long, barren shoulder of land that separates Kilimanjaro's Uhuru Peak from Mawenzi. On a normal day, at sea level, this would be an easy 1.5 hour stroll. But at 4700m of altitude, with chilly winds ripping up over the saddle from one side of the mountain to the other, it gets tough.

In the photo to the right you can see the long expanse of alpine desert stretching to the base of the mountain. The day's destination is just to the left of the top of Marine's head.

It is a long, shuffling walk across the col, past the wreck of a light aircraft that crashed in the changing winds of the saddle in 2006. The last kilometres are the hardest. Although the slope isn't steep at all, it is harder and harder to catch your breath. The Kibo Hut inches closer as you shuffle one foot after the other "pole, pole" the guides tell you "slowly, slowly". It's not really necessary since you couldn't go faster even if you really wanted to....

Tip for the day: Pole, pole!

Day 4/Day 5: The Summit Attempt
Around 1pm we arrived at camp at Kibo Hut, the final uphill section seeming impossibly difficult for such a gentle slope. By now we were truly breathless and collapsed into our tents after checking in with the rangers at the hut.

Our guides filled us with lunch and gave us our final climb briefing: dinner at 5:30pm, sleep as much as you can and we'll wake you at 11pm for breakfast. The climb starts at midnight. Good luck!

We hit the sack and tried to sleep. I managed 2 hours and Marine snuck in 30 minutes of shut eye.

Dinner:
A light dinner (nobody is hungry anyway) then straight back to the tents. The sun has gone down and it is already getting cold. We prepare all our things for the final ascent and crawl into our sleeping bags. Sleep comes fast.

11pm:
Our bladders have been bursting for half an hour but it's impossible to get motivated to get out of the sleeping bags. Then a guide is at the tent calling to you 'Good morning, time to go!'

Layer up: long johns, leg warmers, pants, overpants.
Thermal, breathable sports shirt, second thermal, arm warmers, wool jumper, down jacket, shell jacket, beanies (x2), gloves, two sets of socks, boots....

'Breakfast' is porridge: high energy food. We swallow down a little chocolate, fill our water bottles with hot water, put on the headtorches, grab our walking poles and....it's time.

It's a little after midnight and very cold. To the left and right, above and below, the headtorches of other groups going for the summit form thin chains of light snaking up the mountain. There are a lot of people on the mountain, 200 at least.

A crescent moon is already falling from the sky and sometime in the first hour it is gone behind the summit crest, leaving only a halo of light and the most spectacular display of stars....if only we felt up to appreciating them!

Our guides shepherd us - one at the front, one at the back and several on the sides. They are constantly monitoring us, checking our condition, keeping us moving, encouraging us.

You look up and can see the lights winding high high up on the mountain, out of view so high above. Then you put your head back down and focus on that little circle of light from your headtorch....shuffle forward a few steps...your heartrate is going nuts...just watching the boots in front of you. Don't fall behind.

This goes on for hours. Feet are cold, fingers are numb. At last the guides call a break and everyone collapses onto whatever rock they can find to rest on. We all try to swallow a little water..a little food...it's tough. One of the guides takes my backpack - with nearly 6 litres of water for me and Marine it is too heavy for me. My heartrate is at least 150 and my breathing is shallow and rapid.

Within a minute of stopping it is suddenly viciously cold and we all want to get moving. The group encourages each other and we push on - for 10 seconds you feel great, this is easy! Then suddenly your heartrate jumps, your head slumps and you're back following that little yellow circle of light.

The surface of the mountain is incredibly loose - a mixture of sand, thick dust, gravel and rocks. Every step you take the surface slips away a little and it is the case of 2 steps forward, one step back....very frustrating at over 5000 metres!

I feel abysmal. Marine is nauseous and a guide takes her by the arm and leads her quickly higher. I struggle to keep up. Somehow this does her good and the nausea passes after an hour or so.

My lungs are feeling rotten. 4 days of sucking in dust has taken its toll and I am coming down with a strong cough, which is a little stressful when thinking of pulmonary oedemas. I ask a guide about it and he reassures me it is just irritation from the dust.

A team mate, Bayju, appears in the darkness, looking strong. I feel like death and ask him how he's going 'I'm dead man' he tells me and suddenly I feel reassured. We're all in this together, we all feel rotten with the possible exception of 49 year old superwoman Janet who is already high above us on the mountain. Legend.

Hours crawl by and we lose two of our team: Anna and Jan who have been sick for days with altitude related conditions. Both made it a good way up the mountain and we are all in awe they even started the final night. Respect.

Shuffle shuffle, pause, breathe, shuffle shuffle, pause, breath, look up at long line of lights, shuffle shuffle...the hours pass and suddenly one of the guides announces 'Look, dawn is coming'.

In the east, the sky has melted just a little. We push on....

...some time later one of the guides, Rambo, yells and is pointing up. About 50 metres above we can see headtorches hovering on top of stacks of rocks. It's Gilman's Point! The crater rim!
The guide starts singing and I am sobbing....oh my goodness, we're actually going to make it!

6am: Gilman's Point is 5681m above mean sea level and it is a technical summit of Kilimanjaro. In this photo you can see the first shades of dawn in the eastern sky, but can't see how magnificent the hot cup of tea was that our guide Rambo poured for us. You can see how stoked we are to be there though.

From here Marine was in great form and I struggled. She had it together and took lots of photos of both us and the group.

The main peak of Kilimanjaro, Uhuru Peak, is actually visible from Gilman's. At sea level it would be a comfortable 40 minute walk on mostly flat path with a couple of uphill sections. For us, after 6 hours of battling the mightly slopes of Kili, it was a massive struggle. The path winds around the crater rim providing spectacular views.



Halfway to Uhuru we run into Janet who is already on her way down. How far is it left? Just 15 minutes, her guide tells us....







....an hour later we are within 50m of the true summit of Africa.....














Then suddenly we're there!
AIM Overseas on the roof of Africa!

It is one of my most emotional moments ever - a lump rises in my throat and tears come to my eyes. What an achievement! We are both so proud of each other!



Then it's time to go down, down, down and, quite frankly, I couldn't wait to be as far down as possible!

Back at Gilman's you look down off the rocks and it's quite a view: a 45 degree slope reaching about 1 kilometre or more back down to Kibo Hut. You realise straight away why it was so tough getting to the top.

Now it's fun time: scree surfing!
You take your poles and start jumping down the mountain, half running/half skiing down the ridiculously loose slope. Within seconds you are slipping/running down Kilimanjaro losing height 20 times faster than you gained it. Dust comes up in clouds and it's getting warmer. We realise that we haven't drunk anything in nearly two hours and we're dehydrated.


Down, down, down we slide (see photo to the right) - eating up huge chunks of the mountain with every lunge down the slippery slope. Woo hoo! You're accelerating, dropping, sliding, plunging down through the gravel and dust. It's a rush and reward for all the hard work. The sky is crystalline blue, not a cloud to be seen as you drop below the level of Mawenzi's summit (5149m) towards camp.

The roof of Kibo Hut comes up and soon enough you're back in camp.

I'm shot. I get given a sugary drink from Tosha, our head guide, but it irritates my oesophagus and I'm having difficulty getting it all down. I crash out in the tent, 10.5 hours after leaving it.

Tip for the day: Don't give up. It's hard, but worth it. Have courage and push through and you will be rewarded.

Day 5: Kibo Hut (4700m) to Horombo Hut (3700m) (via the Marangu 'Coca Cola' route)

After an hour or so sleep, we were woken up: lunchtime then time to repack everything and descend further to the Horombo Hut. Everyone was pretty buggered after an epic climb (7 out of 10 of us made Uhuru Peak, and a further girl made it to Gilman's on the crater rim), but there was still 3 hours to go down across the saddle towards Mawenzi and further down to Horombo.

But we pulled on our shoes and started plodding down, which is amazing how easy it is compared to going up! The hours melted away 3.5 hours later we came down into the very scenic Horombo clearing.

We were all very impressed by our guides. Not only had they carried our bags to the top and done all the same walking that we had, but they hadn't slept at all the day before. Whilst we had walked 21 hours out of the previous 32 hours, they had too and had not slept a wink.

They build them tough on Kili.

Dinner was done by 6pm and shortly afterwards Marine and I fell into our sleeping bags. We knew the wake up call would be coming at 6am and sleep was quick to come to us.

Tip for the day: Coca colas and beers are available at Horombo for 3000 Tanzanian shillings each (about $3). You'll need to have change if you want to buy these!

Day 6: Horombo Hut (3700m) to Marangu Gate (1900m)
Day 6 is all about going down down down, but the day starts off with your 'tipping ceremony'. I've written a separate post about tipping on Kilimanjaro because it is important to get it right, so if you're interested check out that post.

As you go down you feel better and better, stronger and stronger. The vegetation changes from alpine desert to scrub, scrub to health, health into forest and forest into rainforest as you drop down from above down through the clouds and out underneath. We didn't have rain but it often does on the Marangu side of the mountain.

Eventually we reached the bottom, ran the gauntlet of children selling things and begging for chocolate and money (this is not the place to leave spare food and money, by the way - if you feel the need to do so, give it to your porters as they've carried your gear for a week and have certainly earned it!) and arrived at the Marangu gate.

At the gate we signed out of the park, were handed our certificates and took final photos. There was a little time to just to say our final farewells to our guides and porters. Thank you to them all!

Tip for the day: strap your feet with tape, lengthen your walking poles, use talcum powder to reduce friction and wear two pairs of socks. These are all measures to reduce the pressure on your feet and knees which descending 2000+ metres in two days will place a lot of stress on.

Don't forget to stretch your main muscles (quads, hamstrings, calves as a minimum) because everyone from our group was sore at the bottom.

Here is our group (from left): Anna Braaten, Janet Vickers, Chris Higman, Paul Tynan, Jenny Tynan, Jan Tynan, Rob Malicki, Marine Hautemont, Priya Jamus, Bayju Thakar. A group of total legends!

The End
Back at the Kilimanjaro Mountain Resort our group put the feet up, shared some beers, exchanged email addresses and basked in the glory of an epic adventure. Even the ladies who didn't make it to the top deserved massive credit for the courage they showed pushing through serious sickness to battle their way up the slopes. If it had been me I'm not so sure I would have been as strong.

If you are thinking of an epic adventure then Kilimanjaro is one of the finest out there. Highly recommended by both Marine and I - once again we strongly recommend the African Walking Company and booking the trip through Africa Travel Resource.