Trip Reports

Kilimanjaro Lemosho Glades - 14 - 23 Aug '10

Dawn on summit day - Kilimanjaro Lemosho Glades

Written by Leader David Haygarth, September 2010

Congratulations to the successful team of ten who all summited Kilimanjaro on the 22nd of August. Effe, Themos, Marina, Georgina, Alastair, Anne-Marie, Peter, Mathew, Claire and Andrew all stood on the summit together after eight hours of climbing from the final camp. There was an great mix of characters in the group who encouraged each other all the way. And this was backed up by a very competent group of local staff including our local guides Eric, Faustin and Thomas, chefs Geoff and Hamzin, and 26 other hard working porters.

The route we took was from Lemosho - an excellent route which took in seven different camps on the way. Spending this many days on the mountain gave us plenty of time to acclimatise - giving us all the maximum chance of getting to the summit, and also gave us the experience of of seeing some of the more quiet and remote parts of the mountain. The two camps on the Shira plateau were particularly beautiful with the huge bulk of the Kibo crater constantly above us.

Of course like any adventure there were challenges to be overcome. For Claire, one major challenge was the entire sole falling off her boots, but it turned out that we had a highly skilled cobbler in the group of porters who stitched it back on - thanks Daniel!

We were constantly impressed with the quality of the food created by our chefs, served in our luxurious dining room tent. This left the rest of us able to concentrate on the living a comfortable camp life, perhaps dealing with the amount of dust around. Several secret washing places made keeping clean easy, but some members of the group took cleanliness to extremes - congratulations to Effe on having the cleanest boots on the mountain!

The evening before heading for the summit there were some very strong winds. Quick action weighing down our sturdy tents with boulders sorted this, but other people nearby were not so lucky and doubtless got even less sleep than we did. The weather cleared perfectly for the final ascent and after seven hours of hiking in the bitter cold we all congratulated each other at Stella Point, knowing that having reached that point, the summit was a mere hour of scenic walking around the crater rim.

David Haygarth
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