Trip Reports

Kilimanjaro Lemosho Glades - 18 - 27 Sep '10

Dawn on summit day - Kilimanjaro Lemosho Glades

Written by Leader Catherine Freeman, October 2010

With most, but not all, of the group flying out from Amsterdam on the same flight, it was nice to finally get everyone together at the Keys Hotel in Moshi at 10:30pm for a buffet dinner and briefing about the week. There were 13 of us in total and along with local guides Danford, Patrick, Rogers and Abu. We set off the next morning bound for Londorossi Park Gate and the Lemosho Glades trail to the summit of Kilimanjaro.

The initial couple days of our trek took us through dense forest and the monkeys (Blue and Colobus), dense vegetation and lack of people made us feel as though we had a made good choice of route. Our first view of the top of Kilimanjaro came on the second evening from Shira One Camp – after a hot morning in the forest we popped out of the trees onto the moorland of the Shira Ridge and were rewarded in the afternoon as the clouds rolled away to reveal our end goal. There were several murmurs that it looked VERY far away...

The night at Shira One was the first of several chilly nights and we woke to a hard frost and clear skies. The sun was soon up to warm things and stayed with us throughout the rest of our days on trek. The next day took us via the Lava Tower – our first foray up 4,600m – and on to Baranco Camp at the foot of the infamous Baranco Wall. At 200m high and looking vertical from camp, the Wall certainly looked imposing and it was amazing to watch the porters saunter up it the next day with hands in pockets and loads balanced on their heads. For us it gave an exciting couple of hours of ascent and only required hands to scramble a couple of short sections. Lots of photos and big smiles at the top before we continued to Karanga Camp for lunch and a relaxing afternoon in the sun, the summit suddenly seeming very close now instead! Unfortunately John had to descend back to Shira Two Camp for evacuation before the Lava Tower, but we were all glad to hear that he had made a full recovery on reaching Moshi.

From Karanga Camp we made a short morning trek to Barafu Camp – our base camp to go up to the summit. Barafu means ‘ice’ in Swahili and the chilly temperatures we found here certainly made it live up to its name. After an early dinner a nervous set of faces crawled into tents for a couple of hours sleep before an 11pm wakeup call. The winds picked up over the course of the evening and by the time we left at midnight it was well into the minus’. A stunning effort from everybody saw us battle the wind and cold to arrive at Stella Point on the crater rim at 6:45am. The sun had just risen and along with a bit of very welcome warmth, brought stunning views in every direction and gave inspiration to make the final hour’s journey around the crater rim to Uhuru Peak. By 7:45am we all stood on the summit of Africa’s highest peak and the highest freestanding mountain in the world sharing hugs, taking photographs and even shedding a couple of tears to celebrate our successes.

Getting back to the comfort of the Keys Hotel in thick air and clean clothes, it is pretty easy to forget the hard work put in and amazing experiences along the way. Hopefully the shared memories, photos and Kilimanjaro certificate will help with that! Everyone gave a great effort to the trip and all deserve a big “well done” for everything they put in to make it the fun and successful trip it was.

A huge thanks has to be said to the fantastic local team of 43 who kept our bags moving up and down the hill, kept us extremely well fed (I think we might have gained pounds rather than lost them!!) and Jagged Globe/Keys Hotel who organised everything so smoothly.

Catherine Freeman, Trek Leader « Previous report | Next report »

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