Trip Reports

Kilimanjaro - Western Breach - 14 to 25 September '15

Looking up at the Western Breach from the Umbwe Route

Written by Leader Andy Hall, September 2015

Spaniards Teresa and Jaime had just got married ñ a brave choice of honeymoon! They and David and Pam (the American contingent) joined us Brits on the KLM plane in Amsterdam. Stepping off the plane in Kili International Airport to the sultry heat and queues of Africa was a wakeup call. I had to apologise to the group for wasting their time in the visa queue as Iíd come more or less straight from a canoe trip in Northern Canada.

In no time we were in the safe hands of the Keys Hotel in Moshi enjoying pizza and chatting with the Australian section of the team already ensconced. A short briefing quietened a few worries as I introduced myself as a newbie in Jagged Globe foreign expeditions, but admitted that I had climbed Kili via the Heim Glacier route in 1991/2. I was also showing a pronounced limp having broken my ankle in February, and at least the team now knew they wouldnít be the slowest!

We were up early to the classic African ëFull Englishí next morning and we were ready to weigh our bags on the arrival of local guide Thomas and his team.There followed a quick demo of the Gammow bag and oxygen, and then it was off to Meru. Fine weather met us at the Arusha National Park gate and a brilliant view of Mt Meru was the backdrop to various sitings of Colubus monkeys, zebras, warthogs and baboons as we made our way in the bus to the start of our climb. Porters sorted, we made our way up through rain forest to Mariakamba Hut at 2,514m. Our next day took us up little Meru 3801m and back down to Saddle Hut 3,566m to aid our acclimatisation. Meru summit day started early at around 12 midnight and the summit 4566m was reached some 10 hours later with the long descent back down to Saddle for lunch and then on down to Mariakamba before dark.

It had been a fine, but exhausting day with some fantastic views of Kili, everyone elated at having reached the summit.

Next dayís descent was stunning (Pam said íthe best dayí) as we passed waterfalls and through fields of wandering giraffes and buffaloes and always with that backdrop of Kili behind. R+R at The Keys followed: cold beers and burgers are especially tasty having earned them!

An early start for our 6 day Kili climb saw us on the Umbwe route around lunch time and into camp before dark, having climbed steeply through rain forest full of chattering monkeys. I had seen nothing of the vista, on my previous trip, which now confronted us on our next morning. Contrasting light and shade, blue sky and white glacier of the Barranco Wall meant many photo stops, before eventually reaching Barranco hut camp site at 3900m.JGís philosophy of success and achievement lies in acclimatisation and we climbed high but slept in the same place the following day.

The Arrow camp at 4,800m is the gateway to the Western Breach, and the walk up to that stony haven was steady. The summit day began at 2am with steep zigzags up a line of rocks which lead through the breach. Our team had been concerned about the scrambling through the rock barrier, but they achieved the crater rim with no major dramas. The sun was up for the final pull to the Uhuru summit and it was a hot and tired but elated team that hugged and celebrated on the top of Africa at 5,985m. The view over Africa was stunning and as on all our mountain days, we had been blessed with great weather.

Thomas and his team of guides had done us proud with their mantra of pollay, pollay (Swahili for slowly, slowly) ñ it was indeed the way to reach success! It took another 24 hours of hard work to reach the Keys, the very welcome beers, summit certificates and celebration meal. We had all enjoyed everyoneís company and been a united and successful team, and so it was sad to see each other off for the various departures to safari, Zanzibar and Europe that followed.

Andy Hall
28.09.2015. « Previous report | Next report »

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