Ever sense hearing about John Kottos climb up Kilimanjaro, it has seemed  like a great idea!, Singapore is closer to Africa  than Boston. The earth is warming and that glacial on Kilimanjaro  will soon be gone . Also i must mention that Kilimanjaro is one of the seven summits, their is a club based on that! the goal being to climb the highest mountain on all seven  continents. Obviously this old man can not climb all of them,  but this is my first!!! so there  we will be an abbreviated list?

I noticed an Ad  sometime in October 07 at my local camping store ( Campers Corner) from someone called ” Uncle George”for a climb up Kilimanjaro in August 08. I  e-mailed Uncle George about the climb in December, he e-mailed me back , said ” i should e-mail him after Chinese New Years? So a few months latter,  multiple  e-mails went back and forth, seemed like we had a group of 5, than 4 , than 3 than no e-mails?? I sent an e-mail out asking folks if they were going or not?? a little frustrated?? Uncle George , re-iterated my concern? Hey Fish or cut bait , finally we had confirmation from all 3 and the trip was on. Uncle George than let us know we could not get into Tanzania with out a yellow Fever vaccination, hmmmm. While getting that the nurse mentioned that Polio is coming back?? so i got a Polio vaccination. This whole process at the hospital seemed like they were up-selling? you know when you buy shoes the sales person than asks you if you need socks?? Also, they suggested that i buy Anti malaria pills, which i did, but someone suggested that i check out side affects, which i did,  i notice one of the possible side affects is permanent Depression???? Not sure if my prescription was the same as what was listed, but i will take malaria before Depression anytime?? But in the end, i never saw a mosquito in Tanzania

In the mean time, realizing that i was equipment limited, I called Nathan and asked him to check  my storage unit for gear, because i was definitely going to need a few items, like a warm sleeping bag, good shoes, not to mention a pack and sleeping pads. I think I had the clothes covered, but just to make sure i wanted him to  send my expedition down parka. Rebbecca and her mother and father  had helped pack all of my stuff, so i knew it was  labeled, boxed,  probably with a spread sheet cross referenced  by usage, color code,  even smell index, etc ( thanks to the Shannon’s). I also need to coordinate with Nate who was going  to dig through these highly organized labeled boxes, pull out what was on my list, and hand it off to Mike P who was in Portsmouth and had volunteered to bring my duffel bag back to Singapore. ( thank You Mike!!) . Well, it went smoothly , not one problem, I called Nathan while he was in the storage unit and we went through the list and came out 100% successful. It is kind of amazing ? I am speaking to Nathan over Skype to his Cell from Singapore, While he is in my storage container in Peterborough , New Hampshire?? ( also Thanks go to Nathan for doing all of this grunt work for the old man)

The group end up being Appasamy, Rheza, and Stevanus. Rheza and Stevanus were going to meet us in Arusha . Also some of the pictures in this Blog , if not a large proportion belong to Stevanus , we tended to take the same pictures, he has the better camera.

 This was a picture of the stewardesses getting ready to clean the plane. Funny picture? i wonder what they are saying?

 

 

 

 

 

This is the plane we took to Aruska from Del es Saleem in Tanzania, it was about a 1-1/2  hour flight. Actually this is the first time i have been in a turbo prop, sense i have been Asia. The last time  we were in a Turbo prop, was a flight  from Denver to Jackson hole which was the scariest flight i have ever been on. Ask  Rebbecca?

 

Well finally we are ready to start, the next couple of picture are of the Machame gate, the Que of customers . I think on that day, on that trail we had about 100+ clients with us. not sure how many guide services were involved? Maybe 20? .The machame trail to the summit  can take around 6-8

days, depending on the acclimation you would like, or how many days in a tent or outhouse you can deal with. The Machame trail is the second most used trail, but it is billed as the most picturesque.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a picture of the porters waiting to go, ( permits)

i have a lot of thoughts about porters? My experience, is, if you want to hike, than carry your load. If you can not carry your pack than you should not be on the mountain. You know , New Hampshire!! “Live free or Die”"

But, when you are talking about Africa or parts of Asia, where there is  limited job opportunities, these jobs are the only way folks are going to be able to survive.  To give you an idea  of the amount of revenue that is brought into the area, based on the amount of clients spread over a typical 6 day hike on only one of the trails could amount to( 1200) , to support the 1200, it averages out to 3-4 ( porters/cooks,guides, etc) per 1 client.  So, 3000 to  4000  Tanzanians have some money coming in, there is more than that because most porters will go home for a few days to a week after an expedition, before going out again. Needless to say, for Arusha and other neighboring villages, Kilimanjaro offers a large chunk of the economy. Not to mention the Safari business? which also adds another chunk of the pie.

The next couple of pictures are the first day , on the way to Machame hut (first camp site)

 

 

 

 

 

 

My pack on the way to the summit on Wilfred’s head!

 

 

 There will be a lot of these type of pictures mainly because i am still in Awe of these folks ability to move heavy loads over difficult terrain, with a smile and  greeting”Jumbo”!

 

 

 

This is the weight station at machame camp site, the park weights in all of the Porters load ( not to exceed 20 Kilo’s). If they have exceeded their limit than, some of the weight needs to be shared with other porters?

 

Well we finally got here, this a picture of the cook (Mohim) in the kitchen tent. By the way the Cook is the second most important person on the team , behind the guide.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                               

 This was first nights dinner: string beans, roasted potatoes and Talapia with a tomato type  sauce. We had these type of meals every night, along with a desert  ( banana fritters)with tea. This was quite civilized. My biggest worry was getting sick  from the food or water, i asked Nixon (our guide) how the water was, he indicated that they had  good sourse. Well it has been 2 weeks and i have not gotten sick yet! Also no mosquitoes???

 

 

                        First night , tent city!!

 

 

 

 

 That is China,   and silver ware that is not plastic

 

 

On the left is the following day, like i said all of the porters are carrying our stuff up the mountain.

 

 

 

This seemed to be the most prevalent flower, everywhere i looked in this climate zone  . Felt  like straw flowers back home!

 

 

 

This is the Senecio Kilamanjaro, it can grow to 5 meters tall.  It flowers around every 25 years, after it flowers the parent plant forks off ( no pun intended) and in 25 years that flowers ?? that is how you can tell how old they are? Count the branches?? some are in excess of 500 years old?

 

 This is William the assistant Guide. Notice the umbrella, they all have an umbrella.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Nixon, our Guide, always calm and always seemed to be in control of the situation. I tended to be the disobedient client. The program they have devised ,for the highest success rate, is “Pole Pole” which is what they said to us and all of the other guide services to their clients, it means “slow slow” which really is the best strategy, keep going, but at a slow pace and before you know it, you will be on the summit? Well, i had this habit of skipping ahead, way ahead. If i was Nixon I would have been a little frustrated/? but he seemed to be okay with it.  If you want him to guide your trip his e-mail address is  nxnltrmsh@yahoo.com

Nixon was great, if i ever go back, it will definitely be with Nixon.

 

Nixon had an interesting tattoo on his hands, pretty cool. He really was the perfect guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This the middle of the second day , you can definitely see a change in the vegetation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the only African creature that we saw. I believe it is called a white throat Raven. Once we got out of the trees they accompanied us every where.

 

 

 

 

 Lemah and Willfredy on left and Lemah being cool below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rheza with a little extra energy, trying out his Kungfoo trekking poles.

 

 

 

 Here is Appasamy on the left and Stevanus on the right.

Appasamy and I tented together, he was a great tent partner. I guess the only issue is snoring? and more snoring, But i got use to it on the fifth day.

 

 

The hike is over for the day, so now is the time for hanging out and enjoying the warmth before the sun sets, we will have a frost tonight

 

This is Mt Meru in the background, with the clouds under us! i love to be over the clouds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little latter the sun is setting with Mt Meru. We seemed to be have Mt Meru in out view for the whole week.

Pretty nice!!

 

 

 

 

 So,   here is the proof, frost on  the tent in Africa!!

 

 

 

 

 

Based on the number of tents,to the right you get the idea how many people are on trail, 

     

 We are on to the third day leaving Shira camp and definitely into a desert climate. the temp must be around 70f not to hot . nice and dry ( especially for a singaporean). It seemed like we could see for miles, and miles.

 

 

 

This is a neat rock cleft the trail goes through, the area is called Lava Towers? see the trail heading up the hill on the opposite side.

 

 

Here is the crew heading out, for some reason folks tended to bundle up, but i found the temp perfect for hiking in a light tee shirt.

 

 

 

Good view of Kili from Barranco camp site

 

 

This is the trail just before arriving at Barranco camp site, A walk through Dr. Seus trees.

 

 

 

 

The next morning we hiked up a steep canyon and came to this flat area, where all of the porters could pass us. Mt Meru in the background.

 

  

Here the trail heads down than back up, i enjoyed being able to see what was ahead of you. Not always an option in life!

 

 

Nixon on the right “Pole Pole” ,  from this picture it definitely does not look like we are on a mountain. Nixon is setting the pace.

 

 

 

Being that their is no vegetation, it was surprising that we can see the trail behind us.

 

 

We are at the last camp site Baranco, so this is the last out house ?  Actually a row of 4, almost like a row of town houses . As you can see these guys are mounted on the side of a cliff. what was amazing , as most folks know, sometimes in a outhouse there is a weird up-draft phenomenon this is no real big deal deal except for a nice cooling effect. In this case the up draft was so strong you could not flush the paper down the chute, At some point i ran out of the outhouse , bits of toilet paper flying around in a cyclone effect.

 

 

This  is the out house for the porters, which is facing the client out house. This is the only out house for the porters. Never saw a Que?

 

 

 

The next morning we are scheduled to leave around midnight, get up at 11:30 pm, but Riva was sick so we pushed the start out by an hour. Not sure why Riva was sick, he seemed to have gotten dehydrated and was feeling out of it, the previous day.  Being sick is really the worst case situation, you spend all of that money and time, and now you just want to hug a toilet bowel and there are no toilet bowels on Kilimanjaro.  Yuucckk

As most pre summit evenings go, it is difficult to sleep,  but i did drop off for a couple of good hours. Ready to climb the next day, the whole week i was planning on wearing my Limmers,( heavy , heavy leather boots that i have hiked in for 15 years) . I had bought new Salomon trail running sneakers for the  5 day approach hike? now what? use the Salomon to the summit? will my feet  be to cold, will the limmers be to heavy and cold as well???????  In the end i figured it would be cold but not so cold that i would hurt( frost bite toes) so i went with the light agile trail runners. On the climb up the summit my feet felt numb, I  ended up just ignoring them and  once on the summit they felt perfect and even better on the way down. Abscessing, abscessing????.

I have to say this was the coldest hike i have ever been on? not numb frost bite cold, just shivering the entire way up. In NH in the winter i have never shivered, even in -10 f hikes? because of the altitude i could never go fast enough to build up a surplus of core heat, I tried, left my group and jumped to another group than jumped to another and so on, till the summit, never got warm till the sun came out                                        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

This is at Stella point just before sunrise , essentially at the craters edge, the summit is a few hundred feet higher , but maybe a 1/4 mile away, once you are at Stella the work is done. When i got to this point i was emotionally blown away? heavy moment!

 

And the Glaciers, here they are!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And here it is , on the summit! the top of Africa! 

 

 

 

I actually think there is a “Ski Stow” sticker on the sign? What was a little wacky is that, unknown to me , there were a lot of people on the summit that wanted to take a picture of the summit sign with their  club banner, or there cause banner ( Cure Arthritis). Well there was so many of these folks that there was an actual Que? that might be a stretch? just who ever pushed there way in front got to the front of the mob? Oh well? Hence no picture of me in front of the sign

 Here are the trail runners , showing off , hanging over a Glacier in Africa? How cool is that!  i guess the Limmers have been retired. some one should pass this along to Salomon for a little real marketing

 

 

 

 

 

On the left is a pack that one of the porters was  using. through the various trips a lot of clients give their gear to the porters,  unlike Asia, porters here are actually wearing shoes and carrying their own pack with their own clothes< sleeping bags, etc. I took this picture because i have neve seen a pack that that was this thread bare.

I hung out at the summit for a good 45 min,  started heading down and ran into my group, went   back up, hung out again for 1/2 hour for pictures, than my chest starting hurting, a  constant ach in my right lung, like one of my brothers punching me , not pleasent, so i headed down, it eventually went away,  around the 1/2  way point i threw up, Nixon said it was becasue of all of the dust??.  a lot of dust..

 

 

Here is the trail about 2 miles from the end, nice to get under some trees, Thsi was one of the few times where i was by my self. Nice and quiet.

 

 

 

 

 

An interesting point is that the trails are arranged so you do not go down the same trail folks are going up? with this amount of folks it makes a huge defference.  The hike/climb was a huge success and would not mind going again as well as organizing it. Here, we are getting ready to get back on the bus, but must enjoy a Killamanjaro beer first. Don’t look to bad for not having a shower in 6 days.

Great Hike, hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

Advertisement