BootsnAll Travel Community

My friends and are going up Kili w/Tusker Feb 07 and have a choice of 8 or 9 days. Have heard that 9 days is too long. Comments anyone?

Hi,

In 2004, I did a 9 day hike up the Machame Route with Zara. We originally wanted to do the Arrow Glacier hike with an additional day of acclimatization at the Shira Camp and the Lava Tower camp but due to time limits and misunderstandings via email it didn't happen.

We ended up doing the regular Machame route.
Day 1 - Machame Camp
Day 2 - Shira Camp
Day 3 - Shira Camp: Acclimatization at Shira with a day hike to the Shira Plateau and the Cathedral rock formation
Day 4 - Lava Tower Camp (sleep high)
Day 5 - Barranco Camp (sleep low)
Day 6 - Karanga Camp
Day 7 - Barafu Camp and summit attempt
Day 8 - Mweka Camp
Day 9 - End of trek

I would say if I was to do it again, I would do 1 day less and skip Karanga Camp. The longuest hiking day, other than the 6 hour push to the summit, was 4 hours so we had a lot of down time. We had broken the route out into so many days that the hiking distances from camp to camp were short. I brought a book to read and was done reading it by the 4th day. There wasn't much to do. We read, slept, talked with the guide and cook, and played cards. If I ever do it again, I'll bring a ball or something to throw around.

The advantage was that we were very well acclimatized by summit night and actually were one of the last groups to leave the camp and one of the first to reach the summit. I'm not saying this to say "hey look how well we did", but more to say that if you take your time to acclimatize your rate of success for summiting is higher. I don't think I would have summitted that night if I hadn't taken the extra days before. There were 70 people attempting that night and the weather was extremely cold (-30C) and very strong winds which drain your energy. We spent a lot of time in the switchbacks, following those ahead of us who were suffering from the altitude badly, stopping every other minute. It was a domino effect, the people in front would stop, everyone behind would stop and by the time those at the end would get going again, you were stopped for too long. In that weather, you don't want to stop and freeze, so since we were feeling good, we stepped off the switchbacks and went straight up and around the slow moving group of 30-35 people. We wouldn't have been able to do that, fighting the cold and the altitude sickness, if we hadn't taken the extra days.

BTW, I'm the first to say that this is not a race, pole pole, take your time, move at your own rhythm, whatever works for you and how you feel at the time. I was always last in my group but that's okay with me, I did it at my speed, what I was comfortable with.

Hope this helps! Good luck on your hike, it's going to be one of the best experiences of your life!

Julie

PS: My Kili photos can be found at photos.yahoo.com/julie_lemieux and they are organized by day. Be warned though, I'm trigger happy so there are MANY.

ronervin,

It is pretty simply math...
5 days = 50% chance
6 days = 60% chance
9 days = 96% chance...you get the picture.

Your odds for 8 or 9 are the best. I took the 9 day trip and made it at 53
with my son. We had two extra acclimation days. We climbed high and slept low thoughs days and did some practice scrambling to prepare for the Western Breach. The Breach is closed now. The extra days saved us from altitude sickness or even feeling rotten and we did not have to take Diamox.

My feeling was why go all that way and have to turn back, maximize your chances!

The mountain was beautiful.

Good luck.

OK, we've decided to do the 9-day hike, humbling as it might be. If it's a great experience and we get the chance, we can always go again and try to rough it out in six days.
I was concerned about days where we only hike 3 or 4 miles. Then we climbed Mt. Washington in New Hampshire two weeks ago. It was a 4 1/2 mile hike up and over the summit to the shelter we were staying in. "Piece o' cake," I thought to myself. Not! Cairn to cairn it was the roughest hike I ever took.
So when you add altitude issues to climbing angles, all of a sudden those three mile hike days don't seem like such underachievements. Esp. to 50-year-olds like us...

ronervin,

You have chosen wisely...

On my trip the shorter days were higher up and we took extra hikes to get used to altitude. I NEVER felt under-worked!

As for humbling? This is not a race and the gift of the summit is worth the extra time and $. Remember, there are 10,000 people who don't succeed and most do the shorter trips.

The account of my trip is called "Nothing but Sky" on
www.mtkilimanjarologue.com

Tusker is a great outfitter with good food although you will not always be hungry...you must eat anyway.

The first time you see a sick climber at one of the camps you will be glad you picked the 9 day trip.

I'll answer any other questions you can think of...

Now go break in your boots!

ED