Trip Reports

Kilimanjaro - 24 Jul to 5 Aug '06

Written by Leader Rolfe Oostra, August 2006

As we had arrived late in the evening, the team was quite taken aback by the size of Kilimanjaro when they saw it looming over Moshi the first morning at the Keys Hotel. "We're going to climb that thing!?". Indeed if a mathematician had placed a bet as on us climbing these African giants and considering the teams collective trekking and camping experience, he certainly would have put his money on the mountains. Some group members had never camped before and half had never been higher than Snowdon. Still, ignorance is bliss as they say and as it turned out this team was well up to the task. In fact, a leaner meaner trekking machine never operated on these mountains before. "we kicked a***" as Dr Terry, the team's oldest member wisely put it.

Often ignored in the chase to climb Kilimanjaro, Mt Meru is by its own standards a tough challenge. Even walking up to the first camp poses unique problems, as apart from the African heat and dust there are giraffes, buffalo, zebras and warthogs to consider. It was a good thing that a .375 bearing park ranger came along and reassured us that when it came down to it he would "open fire without hesitation".

In fact, he told us he had done so a year earlier when in order to save a Norwegian trekker he had successfully dropped a charging buffalo three meters away from what would probably have been a very slack jawed trekker. Little did we know that we were to have our own legendary tales to tell as only ten minutes after hearing of our ranger's deeds, we trod on a seven metre snake! Yep, a seven meter snake!. Our man cocked his gun but it slithered away unharmed as we stood fixed to the ground, too stunned to take out our cameras to back up this unlikely encounter. That night the team went to bed in the very comfortable huts at Mirakambe Camp contemplating the distance between the front door and the toilets looming some distance away in the dark.

The next morning a problem familiar to all British hill walkers reared its ugly head: it rained. It rained enough to reduce visibility to 50 meters but this seemed not to bother the team who deemed these perfect walking conditions. The cloud forest at around 3,000m on Meru is spectacular in mist and fog and we steadily climbed to Saddle Hut camp in an ambience quite inductive to spotting several "lord of the rings" characters. Upon arrival to the Saddle Camp we topped out above the clouds and views became even more spectacular as above us in great detail rose the sharp summit ridge of Mt. Meru and 50 miles away loomed the huge bulk of Kilimanjaro. The team having found conditions so favourable for walking had slashed 2 hours off the standard time; a feat they would repeat every day from today on. We crashed for an hour or two after a hot lunch in the comfortable huts and spent the late afternoon climbing to the summit of Little Meru to take in the views and to scope the route which we were to climb that night. A blow by blow description of our climb to the summit of Meru is simply not possible as the speed the team climbed allowed little time to absorb the finer details.

We summited at 7am having left the hut at 2am and were back in on piece at 9am. Everyone felt 100% ok despite it being the highest altitude for most. The only medical incident of note happened to our lovely ranger who upon spotting a mist rainbow proclaimed that this was good luck for all and then promptly fell over and sprained his ankle.

On to Kilimanjaro! More rain and a muddy climb to the forest cave camp. The campsite was reminiscent of Glastonbury. Still, we coped well. The next day the sun made the occasional teasing appearance early on the climb to Barranco Camp, but then was chased away by more rain for the rest of the day. In a state of mild depression we hurried into our tents and did some more of the grin and bear it stuff. The next day was glorious. Enough sunshine to dry out our gear and warm our souls before setting off on the record-breaking climb up the Barranco Wall to Karanga Camp. We performed all manner of acrobatic manoeuvres as we climbed around a huge Canadian group, which was firmly stuck on the steep wall and were a little disappointed to find that we were not our self-contained team any longer. In the fog of the previous days we had not seen anybody else and now had become aware that we were not alone on the mountain. In fact, as we ascended higher on the mountain more routes joined ours and by the time we reached the mountain's highest camp, Barafu, it seemed that half the world had joined us on our mission. Still these things are nothing but an individual challenge and no amount international competition is going to improve your summit chances.

But we were the wonder team after all and once again as we set off to that ultimate goal on that midnight hour, details began to blur as we sped past all those ailing teams dropping like flies around us.

Not wanting to set any records, the climb was nevertheless over before we could say "Are we there yet" and at the exact time of 05:05am we topped out [typically, teams summit between 7 and 8am in the morning - Ed]. The conditions were cold enough to freeze our cameras and to lock our hands in awful claw like positions. We all had a quick hug to say "well done" before proudly descending back to camp as the sun rose in a fantastic colour display over the African continent. Things don't come much finer than this.

Rolfe Oostra, expedition leader« Previous report | Next report »

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