Chapter 2: The Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and the tallest free standing mountain in the world. It stands at 5,895m so it is almost 6 vertical kilometres above sea level. (facts about oxygen concentration/altitude sickness etc. – statistics )(I only did this research after I climbed it, so was admittedly ignorant of everything. Ignorance is bliss! Gunho cowboy attitude..)

Kilimanjaro

On the 11^th, we returned from our Safari and drove straight to a small town called Moshi. Moshi is situated at the base of the mountain and is dwarfed by its neighbouring city of Arusha. We found a nice hotel and rested up ready for our hike.

Us and our porters and guides before the start of our climb

The 12^th was started in nor hurry, our guide rocked up at about 10am, bringing with him our rental stuff for us to try on. Funnily though we were supposed to start that day and he brought no back up equipment incase what he brought did not fit. Fortunately what he brought for me fitted well enough, dad however wasn’t so lucky. He was to be without Ski trousers. Oh well, could be worse. Around 12ish we arrived at the entrance gate of the Machame route with our entourage of 5 porters and 1 guide.

The porters carry pretty much everything including tents, food, equipment and the sort. Each of their bags weighs in at around 20-25kg. A pretty impressive load to haul up a mountain. This left us with very little to carry, mainly water, clothes and cameras and what now, about 8kg at the most.

Nice view to the south of the mountain

Machame route is one of several possible ascent routes up the mountain and is a round trip of 6 days. 5 days up and 1 day down. It is one of the slower but harder ascents. Ironically it has a higher success rate than the other routes because, although being harder, it allows more time for acclimatisation. (how many kilometres?)

Anyway, the journey went a little like this.

Day 1 – Machame gate (1800m) – Machame hut (3100m) 11km. 6hrs, gentle incline. No problems. It was beautifully tropical during this first day with giant trees and lots of green. That night we were served with a 3 course meal brought to our tent and kept warm with tea and coffee throughout the evening.

Me and Dad feeling strong early on in the climb

Day 2 –Machame hut (3100m) – Shira hut (3850m) 6km. 4hrs, a much steeper walk with a pace to match. Started walking again by 8:30am. Arrived at Shira hut without any problems. The routine was then much the same as the evening before with hot drinks, hot food and lots of rest.

Mountaineer P.Blake

Day 3 – Shira hut (3850m) – Baranco hut (3950m), 11km. 6hrs. The first 4 hrs were a steep climb up to a place called Lava tower which sits pretty at 4600m. We then spent half an hour there having lunch to acclimatise to the altitude before descending 2hrs to the next camp. This fitted well with mountaineering advice of “climb high and sleep low”. By this time it was starting to show on us, we were a little beat and we both had pretty bad headaches. Despite this I whipped out the Frisbee and we whittled away an hour chucking my florescent orange Frisbee into the thick fog in the general direction of each others voices.

A very steep climb at the start of the 3rd day

At about 4am I woke up to pee, my headache gone. The fog was gone and the sky had never been clearer, I could see all the way down the mountain to town of Moshi which was lit like a Christmas tree. The moonlight also allowed for a stellar view of the mountains peak. Quite the impressive sight I assure you.

Had a quick break to do some flying

Day 4 – Baranco hut (3950m) – Barrafu hut (4,600m) 10km. 6hrs. This was the big day, we knew that we were going for the summit that very night so we were brimming with anticipation and excitement. When we finally rocked up at Barrafu hut, which is the base camp for the summit, we were tired. It was about 15:00 and we had to get in our rest before 11:30pm when we were told to expect a wake up call.. Barrafu means Ice in Swahili and for this reason the camp is aptly named. It was about -15 Celsius and we were cold. It was kind of a good thing we had to get up at 11:30pm because sleep was near impossible. The thought of getting started and warming up was almost a welcome one.

The Summit sign 5895m!

Dad wasnt sure where he was

Glaciers seen from the summit

A view back down the way we climbed

The time between when we arrived and when we were woken up to get started on our final push to the summit passed pretty slowly as it was beginning to dawn on us how hard it was going to be.

Slowly as the time passed, it passed none the less and 11:30 came around. Within 15mins we’d had coffee and biscuits and were assembled out side the tent in all our warm clothes. The porters were to stay at base camp so it was just us, our guide and 1 porter.

Returning along the ridge from the summit

Some fellow climbers disappearing down the hill

The descent to base camp

The whole team back at base camp after the summit