Doing Kilimanjaro in January

jimmurt

Hi,

Myself and 3 friends are climbing Kilimanjaro at the start of January. I would like to hear from ppl who have done it before.
We are booking with a company who are going to take us up so obviously they will tell us what we need before we fly out.
I would welcome any advise on how best to prepare as we are inexperienced.

Cheers.

Hugh_C

I climbed it Sept 08 - had a blast. You can read all about it here.

Hugh_C

Oh yeah, take it easy on the mince pies and the sherry over Xmas, and get up the hills to work up a bit of stamina.

lg123

great writeup hugh, can you remember what the costs were like at the time? i guess you went on an all included tour option? any idea how much a porter costs per day?

mckildare

Hey jim and lg,

I did it just last month. Machame route. We took the extra day option but didnt need it in fact as the both of us were well able to walk the distance each day and werent affected by AS (thank christ!). Thus, we summited a day early and were able to stroll back down

Things to highlight about gear..
Dont bring jeans/hoodies/shirts, yer on a mountain and nobody cares what u look like!

If you've done your research you'll know about the worn-in boots tip. Use it!

Have good gear. You'll need less clothes then. My kitbag weighed 11.8kg whereas the other lads weighed 18.6kg because it was full of bulky clothes like a pair of jeans, half-a-sheep style fleece etc. Granted the porters were carrying it but its good travelling.

A decent rainjacket and trousers are a must. We got lucky and didnt get much rain but when it did it aint forgiving! Also protects from the blasted wind up the top

Fitness: If you class yourself as 'fit' or above you should be grand. If you've done any hillwalking before its not much more. Slightly heavier breathing is all I noticed.
If you reckon you need a bit of work, start jogging/swimming or both if possible. They're good all-rounders for the muscles. If you havent done hillwalking before then its not the best time to start but you'll have to get out and try a bit, be able to put it at least 3 hours of continuous walking with a ~5kg backpack. Be prepared that it will take a lot out on your legs but also your back and arms might be affected. I lost about 7kg in fat/muscle and i still havent got it back (done feck all exercise since though :P)

It cost me 4k all in, but that included a 4 day safari (~600 maybe, not sure as it was inclusive), every injection known to man (350), upgrading my hiking gear (300), flights (750ish) and tips etc. We paid the main guide 14/day, ass. guide & cook 10/day each and porters 7/day each. Something like this anyway. For 2 of us, there were 10 staff. We had it all worked out previously and put in an envelope. At the end we gave it to the main guide who counted it out in front of the lads and told them what he would get. Then presumably he would share it amongst them as he saw it (this seems to be the norm way its done).

Other things.....have a decent camera (with spare batteries), u wont believe some of the views! (on summit day, put the batteries in a sock and put them in your jacket, theyll keep the charge better if its cold,which it will be! -15 for us ) If any of the lads snore, good luck! hard boiled sweets go down well with the porters, theres plenty to eat but snacks are handy (peanuts, trail mix etc)
Suncream, hahahaha my buddy looked like a tomato after the summit day. :rolleyes: Dont forget to put it on!

Cant think of much more to say at the moment but ill check back and write anything else i can think of. If you've any qs send me a pm if u want.

jimmurt

Thanks for the tips lads. I'd keep myself fit through running, but I'm going to do a few hikes over the next six weeks with a packpack to get a better idea of where I'm at and to build up muscle.

Trying to drill it into the other 3 about the preparation at the moment.

cphowlin

Climbed via the Umbwe route back in July with 4 friends. One of the guys wrote up this report...

Hope it helps

ahaskmearse

Hugh_C wrote: »

I climbed it Sept 08 - had a blast. You can read all about it here.

I loved your write up on Kilimanjaro and the videos remind me so much of the dancing and singing that went on after the climb.

I climbed Kili in October 2008 and I also climbed using Adventure alternitives. I had the pleasure of having Gavin Bate head of Adventure alternitives leading us.

smurff

Jimmurt, I am soooo jealous. I was there in summer and I will be back again hopefully. My advice is just to get out as much as you can onto the mountains, and do a few days on the trot, more to prove to yourself that you can keep trekking over a few days....speed really doesn't come into it. If you need an excuse for a few extra bevvies over the Christmas here it is....you need to train yourself to drink lots and lots! Basically there are three easy rules to climbing kili....1. Drink lots of water. 2. Walk SLOWLY 3. Positive mental attitude . Piece of cake...hakuna matata

jimmurt

I've been doing a lot of running (I'd be doing it anyway). I'm going to hike this weekend with 8kgs on my back, break in the boots n all that. I'd say it mental as much as physical it is?

Need to get more gear over the next 2 weeks, we're flying on the 4th. Trying to get the lads to start sorting everything out as well.

jimmurt

Hi All,

Just back from Tanzania, did the Marangu route. Found it tough but not as tough as others as I wasn't too affected by the altitude sickness.

Great experience though, did safari afterwards.

lg123

the altitude sickness is a bitch. were you taking diamox?

any chance you could outline your costs?

jimmurt

I took half a tab of Diamox in the morning and a half at night starting the first day. I didn't have much nausea or headache so I guessed it works (I never did it without Diamox so I have no basis for comparison ).

Having said that my friend took it and was getting sick regularly over the final hour from Gilaman's peak to Uhuru. Also I met some very sick people at Kibo hut who have also taken it. My advice is to take it as it won't do any harm.

We have a firend over there who organised everything so we didn't need to book with a company. My costs were:

Flights (Dub - London - Nairobi - Kili): approx €800 altogether

Cost of climb: $1100 - not sure of the exact breakdown but I know a lot of it goes to the park/government

Porter/guide tips: $30

Gear: approx €400

On the gear: this was my first trip of this kind so all this was new to me. If you're into Hillwalking you most likely have some of the gear already. I borrowed some gear as well. Also, you don't have to go to the most expensive shops and buy all the best gear. I got a few items out of TK Maxx and found them to be very good.

lg123

i am sure having a friend locally saved you a lot of money.

re the diamox, i would advise taking it too, i took it re-actively while in the Himalayas but i was on 2 per day. i know now i am susceptible to altitude sickness though.

were there a load of shops selling fake north face gear around the trek departure point?

jimmurt

No people selling gear but there was a load of locals trying to rent us gear.

We rented some gear there as well, just some small items which we forgot or didn't think we would need. We got these in Moshi town.

Tullaghans

planning to do kili in july havent done much training to date, 14 wks to go has anyone any idea if not feasible to train in this time, pretty unfit at moment !!

jimmurt

It depends on what route you're doing. The easiet route is Machame. If your doing it 14 weeks should be plenty of time once you put some effort in.

Tester46

jimmurt wrote: »

It depends on what route you're doing. The easiet route is Machame. If your doing it 14 weeks should be plenty of time once you put some effort in.

The Machame route is not the easiest route. The poster above is confusing it with the Marangu Route. The Machame Route is significantly harder than the Marangu Route (but more beautiful as well).

14 weeks should be plenty to get fit. Just go for long walks and hikes. And when you are on Kili walk slowly, sloowly, slooowly...

Look here for some basic route info.

jimmurt

Sorry I meant Marangu is the easier one with better facilities on the way up. Getting mixed up with the M's there.

glenbuck

You should try training on Fergals Alps with a heavy rucksack and plenty of snacks

Sev

If you want to keep things as cheap as possible, I would recommend you book with a local agent in Moshi. If you book over the internet or with some umbrella african tours company based in Nairobi for example, my impression is that you're business will probably be outsourced anyway to some local moshi trekking agency and middle man travel agencies will take cuts of your money for nothing. Africa is corrupt, and trying to work out exactly where the money youre paying is going is difficult. I would recommend booking with Zara tours. www.zaratours.com

They operate out of a hotel in Moshi called the Springlands hotel, which is nice but quite a distance out of the town centre. If memory serves me well, they're prices are significantly cheaper than anything else you'll find on the internet, and the service will probably be exactly the same... that said looking at the prices now, it seems a lot more than I remember.

Also if you want to maximise your chance of success, aim to climb over as many days as you can (at least 7). Trying to get up Kilimanjaro in 5 days for most people is nuts (due to altitude sickness).

Also read this

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055611570&highlight=Kilimanjaro

Tullaghans

Not sure of wherabouts of Fergals Alps ? is this in the sperrins ? is that the huge hill there where the rare jewish mountain goat has been spotted ?

kbells

I'm going on this day week and starting to worry about fitness and altitude... How did you get on?

lg123

kbells wrote: »

I'm going on this day week and starting to worry about fitness and altitude... How did you get on?

your doing a winter ascent? whats the snow/ice like there this year?

kbells

They say the best time to climb is between August and October it's one of the dry seasons apparently...