Mt. Kilimanjaro Travel Guide

BWA New Years Eve Summit of Kilimanjaro

To all you out there still undecided about how to spend the New Year, I am looking for one last couple to sign up for the BootsnAll World Adventure (BWA) New Years Eve Summit.

The criterion we are looking for is ‘Interested & Interesting’. This is not a budget tour, and we are not looking for budget travelers. We are looking for people who have something to offer and who are keen to learn, absorb and interact with others equally dedicated to the give and take of travel.

Everyone signed up so far is a dedicated traveler, some traveling to Africa for the first time, all climbing Kilimanjaro for the first time. This is going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity to catch the first sunrise of 2009 from Uhuru Summit, the highest point in Africa.

Machame Route 6-Day: Dec 3…looking for Pax

Why Climb With BWA

We have a 6-Day Machme Route climb provisionally set for Dec 3 2008 with space for a few pax. This is an off-beat itinerary since Machame is usually a 7-day climb and if you lose a day that toughens up the score and makes this a trip for young and fit climbers.

Machame is one of the longer outfield trails, coming in from the south and veering west to pick up on the Shira/Lemosho trail. It is usually regarded as the most scenically appealing, and …

WilWal’s Photostream

WilWal very kindly posted this photoshare album on the BootsnAll Message Boards for which we thank him very much.

Looks like the Gods smiled on your journey WilWal, and the weather was fine, the company sound and the summit clean. We like that. Check out the rest of WilWal’s photos of Kilimanjaro climb here.

Ten More Things You Need To Know About Kilimanjaro

First Ascent of Kilimanjaro

The occupation of sub-Saharan Africa by the old-world European powers had been underway for some time by the time the general rush for territory began in the late 19th century. The first arrivals were the Portuguese who rounded the Cape in 1488 and gradually brought the coast regions of the continent into European record. It was not however until the large-scale occupation of the hinterland of the Congo River by the Belgian Crown in 1876 that other major European powers were prompted to devise a system of rules for the occupation of Africa. This was achieved at a summit of European leaders later known as the Berlin Conference of 1884/5

In the wake of the consequent seizure of vast tracts of African territory a surge of detailed exploration followed. This sought to map the continent and to lay to rest many of the geographic conundrums that had absorbed cartographers and theorists for centuries. Among these, of course, where Africa’s great mountains, and something of rush to achieve the summit of Kilimanjaro followed. This pitted some of the great contemporary names in exploration and colonial administration with academics and intellectuals of such august halls of learning as the Royal Geographic Society. It was fitting, however, that in the end, since it was Germany that held imperial title to the territory surrounding Mount Kilimanjaro, that a German should be the first to mount the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, and to confirm for the world exactly what lay at the top.

It was on October 5 1889 that German Geology professor Hans Meyer, Marangu Army Scout Yoanas Kinyala Lauwo and Austrian mountaineer Ludwig Purtscheller trudged to the top of the ‘…weather-beaten lava summit with three ringing cheers, and in virtue of my right as its first discoverer christened this hitherto unknown - the loftiest spot in Africa and the German Empire – Kaiser Wilhelm’s Peak.’

The achievement was less one of epic mountaineering than a triumph of logistics. With the forest clad flanks of Kilimanjaro unbroken by coffee shops and taverns, and the vast plains in either direction interrupted only by lakes or ocean, it was a matter of laying the foundation of a successful summit by use of supplementary camps and the careful portage of supplies. Kilimanjaro was then as it remains now a modest challenge in pure mountaineering terms, but in 19th century Africa it was an heroic journey into the interior, chronicled in Meyer’s book Across East African Glaciers, a must read for any genuine mountain enthusiast.

The Great Search & Rescue Debate

Search & Rescue sits probably among the top three principal concerns that every climber has when they start to ponder an expedition to any of the world’s big mountains, and even many of the smaller ones. This concern becomes particularly acute when planning a trip to somewhere like Kilimanjaro, and this thanks mainly to the inescapable fact that developing world standards can never be wholly relied upon. Even bringing to bear criticism is a bit of a minefield, and the best efforts of any individual operator are bound to some degree to be premised on the permission and facilitation of the local governing authority.

The One Wheeled Gurney

On the whole TANAPA (Tanzanian National Parks Authority) has a good reputation in matters of high altitude rescue. It could be said that they are guilty of massaging the actual numbers of incidences that occur, but that is not in any way unique, since some spectacular examples of this exist elsewhere on the continent too. Perhaps most notably this is so with the numbers of people annually dispatched on the crazy roller coaster of Zambezi white water rafting, and again on the Zambezi with regards to the extraordinarily close to nature canoe trips down the length of the wild lower section of the river.

If you are on a cheap trip up the mountain, and you are feeling dizzy, or if your head is exploding and your lungs are gradually filling with fluid, then the odds are that you will be escorted back to base by a porter. If you collapse and are incapacitated a cell phone alert will probably bring up the famous one-wheeled gurney with its sole accommodation to comfort being a motorcycle suspension system. Upon this you will ride home, and no doubt feel much better when you get there. If, on the other hand, your problem is of a deeply serious nature, such as a spinal or head injury, then your hope will be that a helicopter is locally available to lift you off the mountain.