One of our objectives here in Africa was to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro – a free standing volcanic (dormant) mountain in the northern part of Tanzania. It is 19, 341 feet high. Mike researched routes and guide companies and found Climb Kili to get us to the top. It is required to be on a guided trip with porters. Is it necessary? Not if you’re an experienced mountain climber like Mike and if you had downloaded the route onto a device. But it is a national park and the government has decided to establish this bureaucracy with checkpoints at almost every camp site.
This approach provides a lot of tourism money for the country and jobs – the porters make $10 per day salary and on top of that tips. The guides make a good deal more. Our group of 6 clients had 3 guides and about 22 porters and a cook to give you idea of how many crew are needed.
These people work extremely hard!!! They have to carry all the campsite items, plus water, food and they carry some of our extra clothing for the cold weather since you only need that 2-3 days into the trip. And they have to do this for each campsite and they stay ahead of the clients so that when we get to the next camp site, our tents, bathroom tent and dining tent are already set-up. Watching the porters do their job made me feel guilty but I had to shove that aside and enjoy the pampering and very light personal pack I carried. I would have struggled a good deal in some places if I had carried a heavy pack and trying to stay hydrated would have been particularly hard – until it rained one day, the water sources were non-existent to meager.
The problem with being on a guided trip is that the clients have varying degrees of fitness and training. We bridled whenever we heard the phrase “poli, poli” which means slowly, slowly in this context. But that is the mantra of all the guides – I guess they figure that they can get almost anyone up the mountain if they are moving at a glacially slow speed. We quickly learned the antidote to “poli, poli” is “haraka, haraka” which means faster, faster! Our climb was a mixture of very slow walking to a faster pace we got to do when one of the guides was assigned to lead only us.
We chose a longer route (8 days in all) so that we could go through acclimatization, slowly. The idea being that our bodies would adapt to the thinner, less oxygenated air as we climbed. I felt great on all the hikes leading up tp the summit hike. Every night our blood oxygenation and pulse would be measured. I noticed and starting being a bit concerned that my blood oxygenation steadily decreased as I got higher (not suprising). But mine dipped to low 70’s while Mike’s seemed to stay in the low 90’s. Mike and I decided the night of the summit climb that I should take Diamox to increase my red blood cells. But without sleep (I was too hyped up to sleep before we woke up at midnight for the summit climb), and adding Diamox late in the process, I was laboring up the pretty steep 3,391 feet to the top. My body just felt weird and I was laboring pretty hard. By the time I made it to the Uhuru Summit (highest point), I didn’t feel good and was out of it – just going through the motions. I remember smiling for the camera but not a lot else. I told the head guide I didn’t feel well, and they determined I should get back to camp as quickly as possible (they thought I might be suffering from the high altitude) but I’m pretty sure it was just my body saying enough is enough, without more oxygen! So they took my pack, and a guide and I held hands and we each used one hiking pole on the outside of our combined bodies. And we flew down that mountain! Mike was behind us trying to keep up the best he could. That was hard too – I had to mentally concentrate to make sure I planted my feet and pole in just the right place, while going at breakneck speed. By the time we got to the camp and tent I was wiped out more than I can remember being. I crawled into the tent and immediately feel asleep. We only had 1 hour before getting ready for the additional 8 kms we had to hike that day to get to our much lower camp. Miraculously that 1 hour of sleep worked! I was rejuvinated and after some lunch, I was all set for the next part.
I thought we would see some African animals on the climb but that didn’t turn out to be the case for us. We saw one dik-dik (smallest antelope), some birds but not many. We missed seeing the Colobus monkeys on the last day.
My take-aways from this experience:
- Loved seeing Mike in his element of being on high mountains and thriving! He used to have a mountain guiding company for 4 years and his experience and ability came shining through like the beautiful sunshine did on the mountain
- So many people who attempt this, really shouldn’t
- The crews that do everything for you, are so hard working and admirable
- As a free standing mountain, the views from the top are not spectacular unless it is during sunrise or sunset. You basically see the plains below. With one caveat – there are 1-2 other free standing mountains that can be seen depending on what side of Mt Kili you are on but the views aren’t at all like they are from the Sierras, the Rockies or the Alps
- Dust everywhere – can’t escape it – just embrace it!