BootsnAll Travel Community

Hi all!!

I'll be attempting to climb the old Kilimanjaro on Feb 3rd, and was just wondering whether anyone could offer some advice with regard to eye-wear... I've heard that you should wear polarised, wrap-around sunglasses in order to protect your eyes from the snow glare etc, but as they don't make these up to prescription I would have to wear contact lenses underneath - but not sure if that's a viable option under the conditions?? Maybe there are some other kind of good sunglasses I could get made up to prescription?? Ok, confused!

Any help/general advice much appreciated! Thanks! =D

Eye/UV protection is a must.
There are goggles that can be worn with regular glasses.
Snow Boarding shops or a Harley dealership may be good places to look.
Some of them come with different lens colors (clear & yellow) which can be helpful in dusty conditions if you climb at night...and you will find dust.
My son acually worn a pair of aviator sunglasses over his regular glasses.
Contacts can be problematic with the dust but someone else may have an opinion.
You can get UV prescription sunglasses made too but goggles will probably be cheaper and help in the wind & dust.

The very best of luck to you...it's awesome!

I just wore regular polarized sunglasses (no wraparound) and they worked excellently. There's not really any snow to worry about until you get to the top, but even then, it was just some glacier fields. Most routes, you won't see the glaciers close enough till summit day.

My boyfriend wore his contacts on the mountain -- you just have to have some level of cleanliness with your hands before putting the contacts in, like usual. He didn't really have any problems with his contacts.

Thanks guys, after much snooping around I've just ordered some polarised prescription sunglasses, which don't have side-panels but are generally quite huge and blue-bottle fly like, so should keep the wind and dust out ok!

Thanks again!

I know, I'm nuts , but I didn't want to wear my prescription eyeglasses on summit night, so I wore contacts. My contacts did get dried out (maybe even frozen!) I did wear goggles at the top and they helped a lot! It was very windy - REALLY WINDY - and they helped to keep the dust out of my eyes.

Make sure that the presciption glasses are the pastic lens and not glass because the glass can crack and shatter on when it gets really cold and it can get cold up on the moutain some nights.