Kate and I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro from Sept 19th to 26th. Mt Kilimanjaro is a mountain where the only way you can climb it is with a guide company that uses porters.
Unfortunately, we chose Climb Kili for our tour company. I would recommend avoiding them if you come to this mountain. When researching Mt Kilimanjaro, you’ll read over and over that it’s is an easy walk up. But nobody warns you that you could be stuck with a miserably slow pace if you go with Climb Kili.
We met Climb Kili at the Summit Lodge hotel in Arusha. We received a briefing from our guide and picked up our rental gear (duffles, 3-liter hydration bladders, rain pants for Kate, down jackets, sleeping bags and liners). The following morning we boarded a bus for the Lemosho gate (7,536′). We started our hiking here. We had extremely lightweight daypacks that only had our raingear, water, snacks and sunblock in them. Everything else was in duffles carried by porters. We hiked at an excruciating, miserably slow pace until Kate talked the guided into letting us go a little faster. We eventually arrived at Camp one, Forrest Camp, is at 9,186′ at around 4:30 PM. Unfortunately for me, I had believed the guide when he had told us during the briefing that we would not need bug repellant. I picked up over two dozen itchy bites.
Our porters had everything set up for us at camp. There were several tour companies there and perhaps 150 tents or more. We had a dining tent including a table and chairs. After dinner, our guide asked for feedback on our climb. I told him about our miserably slow pace.
The following day, we had breakfast and broke camp. Our pace ranged from uncomfortably slow to miserably slow again. I saw other companies walking along at a decent pace and I was wishing there was some way to switch companies. Camp two, Shira 1 camp, was at 11,500′. We had the same setup as the day before and I provided the same feedback again.
Day three was a repeat with our pace being miserably slow for the first half hour, then varying between uncomfortably slow to decent. One highlight was seeing a Dik Dik on the trail. We arrived at camp at 12:30 PM. Camp three, Shira 2 camp, was at 13,650′. Four of us in our group made an acclimitization hike to 14,100′.
Day four’s breakfast was typical: Dickinsonian porridge, hot dogs (probably supposed to be some kind of sausage) which no one would touch, a vegetable plate (not really into vegetables for breakfast), one egg and an orange slice (yea!) and stale bread (which I made into a PB&J just about every day. Overall our food ranged from poor to good. One client who exclaimed at almost every meal, “I can’t eat this,” seemed to survive mostly on energy bars donated from other clients.
On day four, we slowly hiked up to 15,200′ and had lunch. It started to rain. We began an uncomfortably slow hike downhill. It began to rain hard. Fortunately, our guide let Kate and I go on ahead with the cook, Davis. Despite raining on us, since we finally had a decent pace, this was the first enjoyable hiking on the trip. We arrived at camp (Barranco Camp, 13,000′), got into our dry tent and took off our wet clothes. Kate’s rental rained pants had failed and her pants underneath were soaked. My rain jacket had partially failed and my shirts underneath were damp.
Our team consisted of 22 porters, two additional porters that would bring in fresh fruit on day five, three guides and six clients. Everyday, the porters would hustle, sometimes running on the trails (Kate and I could have trail run most of the trails) and they would usually have everything set up before we arrived. Our camp also included two bathroom tents that each had a port-a-potty in them.
At the feedback session after dinner, I told our guide that despite the rain, this was the first time that part of the day had been enjoyable since we were at last able to walk at a decent pace. Our lead guide did tell us that we would split into three groups the following day: decent pace, slow pace and My God Are We Ever Going To Get There At This Rate pace (or at least that’s what it seemed like to me).
On day five, Kate and I went by ourselves with our guide Saba. We climbed the Barranca Wall which was mostly class two with an occasional class three spot. Kate and I stayed with Saba by ourselves for the entire day and this was the first enjoyable day of the trip. We got into camp early (Karanga Camp, 13,100′) and arrived before the porters had the camp set up. Arriving early was great in that we were able to lay out all of our wet clothing and everything dried in the warm sun. We had our best lunch of the trip with chicken, warm fries and watermelon.
At the briefing after dinner, I told our guide that this was our first time that the whole day was enjoyable because we were able to maintain a decent pace.
On day six, we reverted back to Climb Kili’s usual pattern. About 2% was a decent pace, 63% was uncomfortably slow and 30% of the day was miserably slow. We arrived at camp six, Kosove Camp at 15,950′. The weather was great and it was about 60 degrees. Kate was starting to feel the altitude and I suggested that she begin taking Diamox (everyone else on the trip except for myself had already been taking it the entire trip). So she took her first pill at 6PM.
On day seven, we got up at midnight and began our summit push at 1 AM. For the second time, we were allowed to go with Saba who set a good pace. While I personnally could have gone 20% faster, we were not going so slowly that I felt uncomfortable (my main worry the entire trip was that we would have such a dangerously slow pace on summit day that it would lead to hypothermia). We had good weather with the temperature being 25 degrees and not too much wind. This was my second day on the trip where the entire day was enjoyable. At age 66, I’ve probably lost two thirds of my fitness. But relying mostly on experience, I felt summit day was a walk in the park with a mere gain of only 3,391′. For Kate, at age 65, the altitude was causing her to feel exhausted. She kept up a good pace but had to struggle to make it to the summit.
The rental hydration bladders that we had been provided had valves too small at the attachment point between the bladder and the hose. Despite blowing the hoses clear, they both froze at this point. So we struggled getting fluids on summit day (the guides did provide us with water from their Nalgenes).
We had some quick photos on the summit. The guides, fearing that Kate had altitude sickness (she didn’t, she just had fatigue) wanted to rush her down to lower altitudes, so we hustled down. This was the first time on the trip that I actually had a hard time keeping up, spending most of the time between 18,000′ and 16,000′ running downhill on scree to keep up. This was 2,000′ higher than I’ve ever run before and that wore me out.
After arriving back at Kosovo camp, Kate took a nap and completely recovered. We broke camp and hiked down a very rough, rocky trail to camp seven, Mweka camp at 10,170′. I’ve only exceeded 9,000′ of descent in a single day twice in the past (both times on the south side of El Pico De Orizaba) and it made for a long hike (we still arrived in camp before 3 PM).
On day eight, we left our final camp and hiked out to the Moshi gate. Our first hour was once again painfully slow. After bringing up our painfully slow pace once again to our lead guide, he finally let us go ahead with Saba who set a decent pace. We arrived at the Moshi gate at 10:30 AM. We purchased Cokes and waited for the rest of our team and porters to arrive.
After most of our team arrived we took a bus to a local restaurant where we hung out until everyone arrived. We had lunch and then took the bus back to the Summit Lodge.
The Summit Lodge was a hotel in Arusha that Climb Kili included for the preclimb and post climb nights. The rooms were clean and the staff was friendly. However, we didn’t have hot water either night and we could only get wifi half of the time. Our first night’s dinner was terrible but our last night’s dinner was good. Both breakfasts (included) were poor.
Kate and I had let Rick, our trip coordinator, know that we would be going on to do a safari next but that we hadn’t yet picked out a tour company. Rick told us that he would get back to us with some prices (Climb Kili also does safaris) and he replied that they didn’t have anything available. Although, honestly, I highly doubt that I would have gone with them after my experience with them on Mt Kilimanjaro.
One of the best things about the trip was being with the porters. I have never met a group of harder working people. Our tents and sleeping bags were outstanding (other than some minor zipper problems). The trail was generally a boulevard trail and was always easy to follow. The trash on the trail and in the camps were another matter. Imagine all the trash you’ve ever seen in every national park you’ve ever been to. Now mulitply it by 10,000 and you will have about as much trash as you will see here.
Overally, because of the slow acclimitization schedule, short mileages between camps, lightweight daypacks and short summit push; this was the second easiest mountain I have ever climbed. The only easier one that I can recall is Guadalupe Peak, Texas (base 5,850′ and summit 8,751′ for a gain of 2,901′). Our summit day on Kilimanjaro was from 15,950′ to 19,341′ for a gain of 3,391′ (Strava recorded an elevation gain of 3,615′).
I really think that this could have been an enjoyable climb if we had gone with a different company. It felt like Climb Kili wanted to suck all the fun out of it.