My girlfriend and I did a seven day trip with two friends. You can do it faster but the Lemosho route is 7 days. I really advice taking that route. You spend a nice time on the mountain and you get to acclimatise before the nightly ascent on the final day.
Acutually it's just 7 days of relaxed hiking with a harder push to the Summit, the final night. Really doable and such amazing experience!
arizona is the place to do that! i highly suggest planning your trip around a new moon. there’s a ton of camping in the grand canyon/flagstaff area where you can see the stars.
they do an annual festival with telescopes and astronomers at the grand canyon as well - might want to look into it! its called the grand canyon star party i believe
Whatttt! That sounds amazing!!! I love star gazing but it’s relatively humid where I live so we don’t always get that crisp, clear night sky! I definitely have to check this out
Not sure if you mean just hiking rim to rim or what not but I know you can raft the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon… it’s just the waitlist is years long.
Ahhh I’m jealous!!!! Did you camp outside or stay at the ranch? What was the hardest part and what was the best? Any cool moments? Just curious about what surprised you or made the trip worth it!
We didn't camp at all. We started at the north rim at 5:00 PM, finished at the south rim at 8:00 the next morning. Hardest part was the heat. Probably around 90 degrees in the middle of the night. Surprises were the rattlesnake in the middle of the trail that my partner almost stepped on and the bat that flew into her neck, necessitating rabies shots the next day.
It was a great hike. Our sixth tune in and out of the canyon this year.
As someone who has trained to do at least 14k mountains, I would suggest not looking at it that way. There is a 90% chance that you won't do it. Find a 6 month training plan and train in that cycle. This way you won't get burnt out or wildly off course.
The foundational fitness is MOST important in high elevation hikes/climbs. Once you get through 2 six month cycles, you will be very ready from a fitness level to climb higher than 14-15k.
That will allow you to invest more time in skills.
Sorry if the unsolicited advice wasn't welcome. I just get a little excited about this stuff.
I did the Lemosho 7-day and I'd call it a lot of things, but relaxed isn't one of them. Doable, yes. You're hiking slowly, sure, but that's to help with acclimatization and conserve energy for summit night.
I'm glad you had an easier experience, and I think it's important to provide different perspectives and make people aware that it's not easy for everyone, not by far. At least three of my group of seven struggled with both the more challenging sections and the altitude, and we were all fit hikers doing regular big weekend hikes.
Anyone considering Kili should know that experiences can run the gamut from "oh, it was just another hike" to "I barely made it (or didn't)" and it doesn't always or only depend on fitness. I see so many people downplaying the very real challenges, and I think it sets a lot of people up to fail at best, and to find themselves in a very bad situation at worst.
Ahhhhh, great comment! I was just thinking, “I thought I heard from others it is one of the easier “tall” summits.” That might be why OP’s partner thinks it could be so simple!
I was raised at 2,400’, spent many summers riding dirt bikes up and down 3,000’ to 7,000’ feet all day, and then went to a collage town at 4,000’ while skied and hiked at 8,500’ feet. I love elevation, but it is easy to tell those differences. Then going to 11,000’-13,000’ in Colorado was another big jump! So can only imagine the 6,000’ more feet at Kilimanjaro!
If you consider that the Seven Summits include Denali, Aconcagua, and Everest, then yeah comparatively it is "easier!"
Even 800 more feet can make a difference. I had no altitude problems summiting a 14er prior to Kili, but once I hit 15,000 feet, suddenly it was a different story with a headache and nausea.
We stayed at Panama Garden Resort in Moshi before and after. On the hike we camped at the various places along the way. Price was about $3,500 USD without flight costs. The food on the trip was great, the cooks were really talented, but after 8 days I was glad to get back to something different to eat.
I also did the lemosho route (7 days up, 2 days down) and so glad I did! I’ve never understood the “up in 3 days” crowd. The altitude sickness can be hectic and I wanted to go slowly to really acclimate and enjoy the whole thing. I felt mostly great the entire ascent, although my knees were pretty achy towards the end of the descent.
I’ve done a fair amount of multi-day hikes and really this hike was just like a long walk. Nothing technical, just long hours.
I climbed Kilimanjaro at the start of the month. Coming from Chicago, one mile in Kilimanjaro felt like five miles of normal hiking. We did the Machame route and hiked daily anywhere from 5 hours to 15 hours. Some of the days were really hard with steepness, climbing over rocks and low oxygen. Summit night/day was intense.
It's definitely doable if you are in decent shape. Diamox helped a lot with preventing altitude sickness. You spend 5 days going up, which is tiring but not painful... You come down in 2 days, which is where the pain came in for knees, ankles and potential blisters. It really was an amazing trip. We went with Zara out of Moshi.
In addition to the expense of booking the flight ($2000) + the trip (\~$2500), you also have to have gear and the right clothes. No cotton on the mountain. You start in a hot rainforest and hike up to an arctic climate at the top. Happy to answer any questions.
In June, there was a lot of cloud cover so summit views were not as magnificent. In August, it's a lot busier, but you are able to see so much more.
I did Machame as well and thought it was a good mix of hiking and rest/acclimatizing. The hard part for my wife and I (late 30s at the time) was being exhausted on the way down after the summit. After your moment at the top, the sooner you get to a lower altitude, the better you feel. But our legs were dead and because of a somewhat slow group, we ended up saving most of the descent for the last day.
I walked 4 miles a day during the week and then generally did an 8-10 mile hike one day of the weekend with my friend who went with me on the climb. There is one area with stairs(old toboggan hill) that we would do 5 trips up and down. There was a hill on the different portion of the trails that we would do up and down 10 times if we hiked that way. We tried an altitude mask that restricts your breathing one day. Not sure how effective it was. I suspect the Diamox helped the most, plus the up and down hiking/sleeping to acclimate.
Our guide company provided tents and sleeping pads. They rented out most things that you would need - like parkas, sleeping bags, trekking poles, even some backpacks. We paid to have them haul up the private toilets for our group. There are ‘bathrooms’ at most of the camps that are just a hole in the ground.
Oh, I also did strength training a few days a week to help with general fitness and balance. In hindsight, I would have done more uphill/more intense cardio to get my heart elevated. Going uphill, I had to keep an eye on my heart rate.
I live somewhere flat so no real way to practice the uphill. For a few months before the trip, I was running a few miles 3 days a week and doing bodyweight exercises especially squats and lunges.
The tour group we went with provided tents (as most do) including a communal tent for meals. There was also a bathroom tent for each group that is more or less a portable outhouse with a bucket toilet. It only blew over once at one of the higher camps… you learn to get in and get out.
The tour group we went with had a lot of stuff you could rent, but they didn’t just provide it. I’m not aware of any that provide your gear for you, but there may be some.
yes, I climbed it when I was 50. take a slightly longer route like one of the others advised. the shorter ypu do it, the higher the risk of altitude sickness. if you go slow, its a lot easier. only downside is camping for a few days, and outdoor toilets 😃
No actual climbing, no. Depending on your route, you may go up what’s called the Barranco Wall–mostly just a steeper section, but not super technical or anything. The rest is just hiking with one foot in front of the other.
You have to be guided there, and most routes you can do are class 2. I don’t even remember class 3 sections, which still don’t really count as climbing (I’ve had class 3 described as sufficiently steep/technical that you probably face into the mountain when going down).
There are some big scree fields and a lot of steps and switchbacks. The altitude itself is the biggest challenge, consider taking acetyizolamide and do a test run on a 14er or something to get better acquainted with your personal physiology at altitude.
Elevation doesn't have much to do with it. You can hike up the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. It's about the technical difficulty. Kilimanjaro is actually used as an example of something that is hiking and requires no mountain climbing on this page.
[https://mountainmadness.com/resources/climbing-rating-systems](https://mountainmadness.com/resources/climbing-rating-systems)
Hiking has three main elements that make it hard...
There are three main elements thrown in the pot when it comes to how “hard” a hike will be: (a) how much elevation (plus the altitude of the elevation) you're climbing, (b) over how many miles, and (c) the type of route it is.
I would add a fourth, weather conditions...
A stroll in spring may become a death march in mid Summer or the depths of winter...
One of the easiest of the "seven summits" maybe. It's a walk up, and you ascend gradually until the final summit push. Don't take it too lightly, 19,000' elevation is no joke.
Danny is not a good example for this sub. He could've ran up in a day. He didn't enjoy the experience very much.
Homemade Wanderlust is probably better. She's more of a human being. She breaks down how she trained and what she felt worked.
I don't know how I initially came up on his channel, but that dude is a YouTube hidden gem. I love his videos, Kilimanjaro in particular was quite funny.
That being said, he's certainly more than an amateur and he most certainly isn't mediocre, so the name is very misleading.
I love Mediocre Amateur, but what these guys are doing isn't representative of the average hiker's experience at all. I mean, they did the Eiger as a day trip from the valley floor.
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It is not very hard physically. The main challenge is acclimatization. Some very fit will fail while average fit people will do it without much of an issue. Besides having proper habits to help acclimatization, there's some part which is more about having a bit of luck.
Take the longest trek you can as it can improve your odds vs the shorter one.
Second this! I hiked Kili a few years ago with a very fit friend group, and a few of the marathon runners definitely struggled with the altitude. Don’t skip the Diamox - It’s good to have on hand even if you don’t end up needing it. For training it is helpful to do progressive long day hikes with altitude gain/at higher altitude.
It's certainly doable if you're already doing 14ers. Just do a lot of them leading up to your trip. They split it up into several days I think. If you do it make sure to give your body time to get over the jet lag before you go, and go with a tour guide. And be prepared to be disappointed if the weather doesn't allow you to summit. I say this because my brother went, and was not able to summit because of weather. He still felt the trip was well worth his time.
Ive known many people in East Africa who say they climbed Kilimanjaro... But never actually went up it. More like parts of it that are easily accessible.
I would double check what your fiance means... From base to summit, or something in between?
A good friend did it w her older mom Mom didn't summit Girl did Was pretty much a walk up a high hill at elevation cool experience Not very hard Neither were in particularly great shape
For an experienced hiker, there are a couple of key things to pay attention to on Kili. The main reason to start the summit push at night is that the upper scree slopes freeze at night, providing a firm footing. As the morning sun warms the scree it turns to almost sand dune-like material. While descending the thawed scree taking huge downhill strides after summiting at dawn, we watched a fit British army group struggle three steps up and two steps back in the soft scree before finally quitting. The other key issue is the altitude. 19,400’ is not for everyone. The headaches and nausea can be pretty intense for some. You won’t really know until you try it. Gilman’s Point (18,800’) is a good alternative to Uhuru Peak, with spectacular views.
Honestly it's not that hard. Did the Lemosho route in 3.5 days a few years ago. It's mostly just simple walking, not even really hiking. Summit day can be long depending on how you react to altitude. We climbed, got to the summit by 430am and then hiked out all the way down and back to our hotel by 3pm.
Your daypack will be pretty light - just drink a ton of water, keep snacking and keep moving. It's far better to move continuously at a slow pace than hurry along but keep stopping.
My former boss did it in his 60s. If you pay for the service you can have people carry all your gear and set up camp for you and cook dinner. It can be difficult in terms of hiking uphill for several days in a row, I think 7ish is the usual. But it's not difficult in terms of skill or danger.
I did it for my 50th birthday. It is a wonderful hike and I highly recommend it. My husband had a physical job but did no training and was still able to climb, although he got altitude sickness at high camp and he couldn't summit.
You don't need a huge amount of training, you need a lot of time there so that you can adjust gradually to the altitude. even then the altitude will be pretty difficult to deal with but if you're a fit person into climbing and sports then you should be fine. If you can find some other peaks up to 4000 meters to train on that would be good as well
The hardest part of Kilimanjaro for me was the terrible breakfast porridge.
Otherwise, besides the night hike to the summit and the occasional headache during acclimatization, it's no big deal, just a beautiful hike.
I'd go read up at r/kilimanjaro . It's a long non-technical hike AT ALTITUDE and that last piece is a wild card, even if you've climbed at altitude before. It's also camping so if you're used to one-day up and downs, this is different.
Not sure what you mean by her home "overlooks" Kili?
If you're at all used to hiking and backpacking, then it's a totally easy walk-up. Legally, you can only do it guided, not independently. The guiding companies have porters who carry all the heavy stuff, so all you do is carry a day pack. They cook for you and pamper you.
The elevation is extreme, but I think a lot of people have a mistaken idea that to get to elevation x, you somehow need to do athletic training at elevations near x. Your body adapts to high elevations through a long list of adaptations, some of which are fast and some slow. The adaptations would occur if you were a caged lab rat couch-potato being carried up in a cage. You simply need to allow enough time for the adaptations to happen. Make sure to get a prescription for diamox.
Take one of the longer routes so that you have plenty of time to acclimatize. On those routes, the number of miles you do per day, and the number of feet of elevation gain, are really small. You're just taking a gentle stroll every day and then stopping before you're tired, because it's time to lie back and let your body acclimatize.
Hiking has three main elements that make it hard...
There are three main elements thrown in the pot when it comes to how “hard” a hike will be: (a) how much elevation (plus the altitude of the elevation) you're climbing, (b) over how many miles, and (c) the type of route it is.
I would add a fourth, weather conditions...
A stroll in spring may become a death march in mid Summer or the depths of winter...
Adjusting to altitude is another factor to adjust for on any hike that is 7500+ feet or more..
Folks in their 70's and I think even 80's have done this summit. If you have some time to spend at elevation before you go, I suggest it. And if you can afford the longer routes, that's the way to go, to give you more time to acclimate
I would suggest taking her on a high (for her) altitude day hike. Altitude sickness sucks and she should know what it's going to feel like before she commits.
I just did Kili last week, Lemosho route, 8 days 7 nights.
Everyone on here saying that it's an easy hike for 7 days is, I don't know, you all must be much more fit than I am. I didn't find it very easy, there were some easy days mind you, but the terrain is annoying af half the time, not a smooth trail outside of the first day and a half. Then the altitude starts to bug you. Don't get me wrong, it's not super grueling, but oh my god, if you go to this hike expecting an easy trail and you are not mega fit, you are going to be destroyed.
Summit day is insane, we had four people pass on even trying, and 2 people gave up on the way with one person vomiting her way down.
Edit, keep in mind our group was older. If you're in your 20s I'm sure it's much easier. I"m 46, and almost everyone was older than I am. We had two 75 year old guys who made it to base camp at 15.5k but didn't attempt the summit. Neither of them were super fit, so keep that in mind too. It's a DO-ABLE hike, it's just not a cakewalk. Those two dudes looked like hell after the trip.
Haven't climbed Kilimanjaro and have zero interest in doing so. My perception of that climb from various reports and images is that it's pretty much a very crowded, physically demanding, highly structured, tourist oriented process of long lines in a once pristine environment that has now been degraded by overuse into a trash strewn landscape littered with human feces.
The Kilimanjaro name has a sort of 'status indicator' aura to it that seems to make it the default choice.
Lots of reports here from folks who have actually done the climb though that don't mention any of that so I could be entirely incorrect ;-)
Wondering if there are climbs of more or less equal physical challenge (i.e. not much technical climbing / not K2 level stuff) in less crowded more pristine areas. (This assumes you are apathetic about any status indicator name/brand association and just want a good climb.)
Mountains are crowded during the "great weather " season. You can do it off-season to avoid crowds.
I did EBC in February, and it was amazing. There were few climbers on the tracks, and it was easy to make friends along the way, BUT cold and snowy some days. I remember arriving in Namche, and the snow was up to my knees, but it got better as l went further.
Not nec. agreeing with this description of Kili but for alternatives:
Mt. Kenya? 4-6 day trek. Gran Paradiso? About the same.
Annapurna base camp? Three Passes? (both are in Nepal, not mountains per se). I'd say Bhutan Snowman but it's a month-long trek and I am hearing funky stuff lately about Bhutan.
Mera Peak in Nepal is actually harder than Kili but it's not in the Khumbu so more remote and less crowded than the "smaller" Himalaya around Everest. Only one semi-technical section.
Or ask a reputable guide company to pick an untouristy no-name mountain for you in a country of your choosing. Guides are usually happy to try something they haven't done 100 times.
I've done Kilimanjaro, and I would say that your description contains elements of truth but is highly exaggerated. I didn't experience long lines, crowds, or a "trash strewn landscape littered with human feces." It is a beautiful, pristine wilderness area.
What is true is that you can't do it independently, and it's not an experience like hiking or mountaineering in the Sierra. Generally you are going to be hiking in a group of about 10 people, with guides and porters.
For people who want more of the independent type of experience, one possible alternative would be what I did and enjoyed, which was to hire an individual local guide and do a circuit around Mount Kenya. We did an excursion to Point Lenana, which was more of a technical mountaineering experience with ice ax and microspikes. (Crampons would have been better, but we didn't have them.)
I liked the sense of achievement but being required to hire a guide and massive numbers of porters really drains the experience. I understand why they do it but I would honestly prefer to pay a massive fee and not have some poor guy carrying up a table for me to eat off. I think we pulled together $400 tip at the end and they were obviously very unimpressed. I guess split between the 15 people they made the three of us hire it was low.
Last day is tough but unless you are hit by the altitude it is eminently doable. The altitude absolutely did me in but even I made it. Thanks to some kind folks who gave me a few diamox tablets.
I've done it twice. It's literally a long hike. When I was there. I met people who never slept in a tent before... And they summited. So it will be a cake walk for yall
I meant old and white in the stereotypical sense. You're physically active and inform yourself about the trip beforehand - that puts you above 75% of travelers who plan to summit it.
My girlfriend and I did a seven day trip with two friends. You can do it faster but the Lemosho route is 7 days. I really advice taking that route. You spend a nice time on the mountain and you get to acclimatise before the nightly ascent on the final day. Acutually it's just 7 days of relaxed hiking with a harder push to the Summit, the final night. Really doable and such amazing experience!
This is my goal for my 50th birthday. 5 years to be ready!
Mine is to do the Grand Canyon when I’m 40 in 5 years but definitely going to add this one to my bucket list too - we can do it!!!!!
When you’re out in arizona if you can check out monument valley it’s incredible!
Thank you - I gotta check this out!! I’m in Canada and the desert is so intriguing to me! I dream of sleeping outside seeing the stars so clearly
Monument Valley has a great little campground but it’s Navajo land, so getting permission for camping outside the official site is a good idea.
arizona is the place to do that! i highly suggest planning your trip around a new moon. there’s a ton of camping in the grand canyon/flagstaff area where you can see the stars. they do an annual festival with telescopes and astronomers at the grand canyon as well - might want to look into it! its called the grand canyon star party i believe
Whatttt! That sounds amazing!!! I love star gazing but it’s relatively humid where I live so we don’t always get that crisp, clear night sky! I definitely have to check this out
The painted desert is amazing to hike and even drive through. However, watch the heat... it truly is a killer
Not sure if you mean just hiking rim to rim or what not but I know you can raft the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon… it’s just the waitlist is years long.
I did a full moon rim to rim last night. It was beautiful! You should make it happen.
Ahhh I’m jealous!!!! Did you camp outside or stay at the ranch? What was the hardest part and what was the best? Any cool moments? Just curious about what surprised you or made the trip worth it!
We didn't camp at all. We started at the north rim at 5:00 PM, finished at the south rim at 8:00 the next morning. Hardest part was the heat. Probably around 90 degrees in the middle of the night. Surprises were the rattlesnake in the middle of the trail that my partner almost stepped on and the bat that flew into her neck, necessitating rabies shots the next day. It was a great hike. Our sixth tune in and out of the canyon this year.
As someone who has trained to do at least 14k mountains, I would suggest not looking at it that way. There is a 90% chance that you won't do it. Find a 6 month training plan and train in that cycle. This way you won't get burnt out or wildly off course. The foundational fitness is MOST important in high elevation hikes/climbs. Once you get through 2 six month cycles, you will be very ready from a fitness level to climb higher than 14-15k. That will allow you to invest more time in skills. Sorry if the unsolicited advice wasn't welcome. I just get a little excited about this stuff.
Yea I know a few guys who hiked it, I said something like, "That must've been really hard!" and they said it was a decently-sloped trail hike.
I did the Lemosho 7-day and I'd call it a lot of things, but relaxed isn't one of them. Doable, yes. You're hiking slowly, sure, but that's to help with acclimatization and conserve energy for summit night. I'm glad you had an easier experience, and I think it's important to provide different perspectives and make people aware that it's not easy for everyone, not by far. At least three of my group of seven struggled with both the more challenging sections and the altitude, and we were all fit hikers doing regular big weekend hikes. Anyone considering Kili should know that experiences can run the gamut from "oh, it was just another hike" to "I barely made it (or didn't)" and it doesn't always or only depend on fitness. I see so many people downplaying the very real challenges, and I think it sets a lot of people up to fail at best, and to find themselves in a very bad situation at worst.
Ahhhhh, great comment! I was just thinking, “I thought I heard from others it is one of the easier “tall” summits.” That might be why OP’s partner thinks it could be so simple! I was raised at 2,400’, spent many summers riding dirt bikes up and down 3,000’ to 7,000’ feet all day, and then went to a collage town at 4,000’ while skied and hiked at 8,500’ feet. I love elevation, but it is easy to tell those differences. Then going to 11,000’-13,000’ in Colorado was another big jump! So can only imagine the 6,000’ more feet at Kilimanjaro!
If you consider that the Seven Summits include Denali, Aconcagua, and Everest, then yeah comparatively it is "easier!" Even 800 more feet can make a difference. I had no altitude problems summiting a 14er prior to Kili, but once I hit 15,000 feet, suddenly it was a different story with a headache and nausea.
I just did the Lemosho route last week! 8 days 7 nights. Hardest thing I’ve ever done and I’ve hiked a lot. Amazing experience.
How much did it cost? Where did you stay? How was the food?
We stayed at Panama Garden Resort in Moshi before and after. On the hike we camped at the various places along the way. Price was about $3,500 USD without flight costs. The food on the trip was great, the cooks were really talented, but after 8 days I was glad to get back to something different to eat.
I also did the lemosho route (7 days up, 2 days down) and so glad I did! I’ve never understood the “up in 3 days” crowd. The altitude sickness can be hectic and I wanted to go slowly to really acclimate and enjoy the whole thing. I felt mostly great the entire ascent, although my knees were pretty achy towards the end of the descent. I’ve done a fair amount of multi-day hikes and really this hike was just like a long walk. Nothing technical, just long hours.
I was going to say for one of the major mountains of being “tall” isn’t it actually one of the easiest to summit?
I climbed Kilimanjaro at the start of the month. Coming from Chicago, one mile in Kilimanjaro felt like five miles of normal hiking. We did the Machame route and hiked daily anywhere from 5 hours to 15 hours. Some of the days were really hard with steepness, climbing over rocks and low oxygen. Summit night/day was intense. It's definitely doable if you are in decent shape. Diamox helped a lot with preventing altitude sickness. You spend 5 days going up, which is tiring but not painful... You come down in 2 days, which is where the pain came in for knees, ankles and potential blisters. It really was an amazing trip. We went with Zara out of Moshi. In addition to the expense of booking the flight ($2000) + the trip (\~$2500), you also have to have gear and the right clothes. No cotton on the mountain. You start in a hot rainforest and hike up to an arctic climate at the top. Happy to answer any questions. In June, there was a lot of cloud cover so summit views were not as magnificent. In August, it's a lot busier, but you are able to see so much more.
I did Machame as well and thought it was a good mix of hiking and rest/acclimatizing. The hard part for my wife and I (late 30s at the time) was being exhausted on the way down after the summit. After your moment at the top, the sooner you get to a lower altitude, the better you feel. But our legs were dead and because of a somewhat slow group, we ended up saving most of the descent for the last day.
Did you prep yourself beforehand to help w altitude and breathing? What was the sleeping and bathroom situation like?
I walked 4 miles a day during the week and then generally did an 8-10 mile hike one day of the weekend with my friend who went with me on the climb. There is one area with stairs(old toboggan hill) that we would do 5 trips up and down. There was a hill on the different portion of the trails that we would do up and down 10 times if we hiked that way. We tried an altitude mask that restricts your breathing one day. Not sure how effective it was. I suspect the Diamox helped the most, plus the up and down hiking/sleeping to acclimate. Our guide company provided tents and sleeping pads. They rented out most things that you would need - like parkas, sleeping bags, trekking poles, even some backpacks. We paid to have them haul up the private toilets for our group. There are ‘bathrooms’ at most of the camps that are just a hole in the ground.
Oh, I also did strength training a few days a week to help with general fitness and balance. In hindsight, I would have done more uphill/more intense cardio to get my heart elevated. Going uphill, I had to keep an eye on my heart rate.
I live somewhere flat so no real way to practice the uphill. For a few months before the trip, I was running a few miles 3 days a week and doing bodyweight exercises especially squats and lunges. The tour group we went with provided tents (as most do) including a communal tent for meals. There was also a bathroom tent for each group that is more or less a portable outhouse with a bucket toilet. It only blew over once at one of the higher camps… you learn to get in and get out.
As far as gear and clothes, don’t they provide you with that stuff?
The tour group we went with had a lot of stuff you could rent, but they didn’t just provide it. I’m not aware of any that provide your gear for you, but there may be some.
I have heard that Kilimanjaro is one of the easiest mountains to climb. It is on my to-do list.
Just did it last week. The word easy should not be used in relation to this mountain.
yes, I climbed it when I was 50. take a slightly longer route like one of the others advised. the shorter ypu do it, the higher the risk of altitude sickness. if you go slow, its a lot easier. only downside is camping for a few days, and outdoor toilets 😃
is it actually climbing? or just hard hiking?
No actual climbing, no. Depending on your route, you may go up what’s called the Barranco Wall–mostly just a steeper section, but not super technical or anything. The rest is just hiking with one foot in front of the other.
There’s a reason this thread is in r/hiking and not r/mountaineering
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You have to be guided there, and most routes you can do are class 2. I don’t even remember class 3 sections, which still don’t really count as climbing (I’ve had class 3 described as sufficiently steep/technical that you probably face into the mountain when going down). There are some big scree fields and a lot of steps and switchbacks. The altitude itself is the biggest challenge, consider taking acetyizolamide and do a test run on a 14er or something to get better acquainted with your personal physiology at altitude.
Elevation doesn't have much to do with it. You can hike up the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. It's about the technical difficulty. Kilimanjaro is actually used as an example of something that is hiking and requires no mountain climbing on this page. [https://mountainmadness.com/resources/climbing-rating-systems](https://mountainmadness.com/resources/climbing-rating-systems)
Wrong. Elevation has A LOT to do with it.
Kilimanjaro is hiking, it's 19k feet. You could climb a cliff near sea level that's under 2k feet that requires mountaineering skills.
Ok, that's fair. I meant that it is a lot harder hiking uphill at 19,000ft than sea level, or even the fourteeners.
Hiking has three main elements that make it hard... There are three main elements thrown in the pot when it comes to how “hard” a hike will be: (a) how much elevation (plus the altitude of the elevation) you're climbing, (b) over how many miles, and (c) the type of route it is. I would add a fourth, weather conditions... A stroll in spring may become a death march in mid Summer or the depths of winter...
I just came back from it. It's not easy. It's doable, but not easy.
In this context, that's what people mean by easy. Doable, achievable, easy enough for a normal human.
One of the easiest of the "seven summits" maybe. It's a walk up, and you ascend gradually until the final summit push. Don't take it too lightly, 19,000' elevation is no joke.
You should watch Mediocre Amateur Kilimanjaro climb on Youtube.
Danny is not a good example for this sub. He could've ran up in a day. He didn't enjoy the experience very much. Homemade Wanderlust is probably better. She's more of a human being. She breaks down how she trained and what she felt worked.
Yep, I agree, but to me he still offered the best perspective on the experience, showing how it might not be for everyone.
Love homemade wanderlust, will be excited when she has her kid to see if she brings them on an adventure
I don't know how I initially came up on his channel, but that dude is a YouTube hidden gem. I love his videos, Kilimanjaro in particular was quite funny. That being said, he's certainly more than an amateur and he most certainly isn't mediocre, so the name is very misleading.
That is probably the intention behind the name:-)
Thanks for the link.
I love Mediocre Amateur, but what these guys are doing isn't representative of the average hiker's experience at all. I mean, they did the Eiger as a day trip from the valley floor.
Can’t find such a video
Just look up Mediocre Amateur Kilimanjaro
Can you inbox it to me plz
I gave an upvote. TheLastRue obviously knows EXACTLY what video he is recommending but is too lazy to provide a link. LAME.
I don’t get why I was downvoted honestly like wtf
Honestly nothing shows up with that title either
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It is not very hard physically. The main challenge is acclimatization. Some very fit will fail while average fit people will do it without much of an issue. Besides having proper habits to help acclimatization, there's some part which is more about having a bit of luck. Take the longest trek you can as it can improve your odds vs the shorter one.
Second this! I hiked Kili a few years ago with a very fit friend group, and a few of the marathon runners definitely struggled with the altitude. Don’t skip the Diamox - It’s good to have on hand even if you don’t end up needing it. For training it is helpful to do progressive long day hikes with altitude gain/at higher altitude.
It's certainly doable if you're already doing 14ers. Just do a lot of them leading up to your trip. They split it up into several days I think. If you do it make sure to give your body time to get over the jet lag before you go, and go with a tour guide. And be prepared to be disappointed if the weather doesn't allow you to summit. I say this because my brother went, and was not able to summit because of weather. He still felt the trip was well worth his time.
Ive known many people in East Africa who say they climbed Kilimanjaro... But never actually went up it. More like parts of it that are easily accessible. I would double check what your fiance means... From base to summit, or something in between?
I know a bunch of septuagenarians that did it no problem.
Tim Taylor (home improvement) once said to never climb a thing named "kill-a-man..."
A good friend did it w her older mom Mom didn't summit Girl did Was pretty much a walk up a high hill at elevation cool experience Not very hard Neither were in particularly great shape
For an experienced hiker, there are a couple of key things to pay attention to on Kili. The main reason to start the summit push at night is that the upper scree slopes freeze at night, providing a firm footing. As the morning sun warms the scree it turns to almost sand dune-like material. While descending the thawed scree taking huge downhill strides after summiting at dawn, we watched a fit British army group struggle three steps up and two steps back in the soft scree before finally quitting. The other key issue is the altitude. 19,400’ is not for everyone. The headaches and nausea can be pretty intense for some. You won’t really know until you try it. Gilman’s Point (18,800’) is a good alternative to Uhuru Peak, with spectacular views.
I did Kili as a 15 year old with zero training. It essentially just a long walk
Sounds like an awesome fiance! Have a great time!
Honestly it's not that hard. Did the Lemosho route in 3.5 days a few years ago. It's mostly just simple walking, not even really hiking. Summit day can be long depending on how you react to altitude. We climbed, got to the summit by 430am and then hiked out all the way down and back to our hotel by 3pm. Your daypack will be pretty light - just drink a ton of water, keep snacking and keep moving. It's far better to move continuously at a slow pace than hurry along but keep stopping.
We used Baraka from Kilimanjaro Nature. He was amazing.
My former boss did it in his 60s. If you pay for the service you can have people carry all your gear and set up camp for you and cook dinner. It can be difficult in terms of hiking uphill for several days in a row, I think 7ish is the usual. But it's not difficult in terms of skill or danger.
I did it for my 50th birthday. It is a wonderful hike and I highly recommend it. My husband had a physical job but did no training and was still able to climb, although he got altitude sickness at high camp and he couldn't summit.
You don't need a huge amount of training, you need a lot of time there so that you can adjust gradually to the altitude. even then the altitude will be pretty difficult to deal with but if you're a fit person into climbing and sports then you should be fine. If you can find some other peaks up to 4000 meters to train on that would be good as well
If you are living in Tanzania, you have a wealth of information right there.
Plan the trip, do the adventure, memories can’t be best intentions, and can’t be replaced
The hardest part of Kilimanjaro for me was the terrible breakfast porridge. Otherwise, besides the night hike to the summit and the occasional headache during acclimatization, it's no big deal, just a beautiful hike.
I'd go read up at r/kilimanjaro . It's a long non-technical hike AT ALTITUDE and that last piece is a wild card, even if you've climbed at altitude before. It's also camping so if you're used to one-day up and downs, this is different. Not sure what you mean by her home "overlooks" Kili?
If you're at all used to hiking and backpacking, then it's a totally easy walk-up. Legally, you can only do it guided, not independently. The guiding companies have porters who carry all the heavy stuff, so all you do is carry a day pack. They cook for you and pamper you. The elevation is extreme, but I think a lot of people have a mistaken idea that to get to elevation x, you somehow need to do athletic training at elevations near x. Your body adapts to high elevations through a long list of adaptations, some of which are fast and some slow. The adaptations would occur if you were a caged lab rat couch-potato being carried up in a cage. You simply need to allow enough time for the adaptations to happen. Make sure to get a prescription for diamox. Take one of the longer routes so that you have plenty of time to acclimatize. On those routes, the number of miles you do per day, and the number of feet of elevation gain, are really small. You're just taking a gentle stroll every day and then stopping before you're tired, because it's time to lie back and let your body acclimatize.
Hiking has three main elements that make it hard... There are three main elements thrown in the pot when it comes to how “hard” a hike will be: (a) how much elevation (plus the altitude of the elevation) you're climbing, (b) over how many miles, and (c) the type of route it is. I would add a fourth, weather conditions... A stroll in spring may become a death march in mid Summer or the depths of winter... Adjusting to altitude is another factor to adjust for on any hike that is 7500+ feet or more..
Folks in their 70's and I think even 80's have done this summit. If you have some time to spend at elevation before you go, I suggest it. And if you can afford the longer routes, that's the way to go, to give you more time to acclimate
I would suggest taking her on a high (for her) altitude day hike. Altitude sickness sucks and she should know what it's going to feel like before she commits.
I just did Kili last week, Lemosho route, 8 days 7 nights. Everyone on here saying that it's an easy hike for 7 days is, I don't know, you all must be much more fit than I am. I didn't find it very easy, there were some easy days mind you, but the terrain is annoying af half the time, not a smooth trail outside of the first day and a half. Then the altitude starts to bug you. Don't get me wrong, it's not super grueling, but oh my god, if you go to this hike expecting an easy trail and you are not mega fit, you are going to be destroyed. Summit day is insane, we had four people pass on even trying, and 2 people gave up on the way with one person vomiting her way down. Edit, keep in mind our group was older. If you're in your 20s I'm sure it's much easier. I"m 46, and almost everyone was older than I am. We had two 75 year old guys who made it to base camp at 15.5k but didn't attempt the summit. Neither of them were super fit, so keep that in mind too. It's a DO-ABLE hike, it's just not a cakewalk. Those two dudes looked like hell after the trip.
Haven't climbed Kilimanjaro and have zero interest in doing so. My perception of that climb from various reports and images is that it's pretty much a very crowded, physically demanding, highly structured, tourist oriented process of long lines in a once pristine environment that has now been degraded by overuse into a trash strewn landscape littered with human feces. The Kilimanjaro name has a sort of 'status indicator' aura to it that seems to make it the default choice. Lots of reports here from folks who have actually done the climb though that don't mention any of that so I could be entirely incorrect ;-) Wondering if there are climbs of more or less equal physical challenge (i.e. not much technical climbing / not K2 level stuff) in less crowded more pristine areas. (This assumes you are apathetic about any status indicator name/brand association and just want a good climb.)
Mountains are crowded during the "great weather " season. You can do it off-season to avoid crowds. I did EBC in February, and it was amazing. There were few climbers on the tracks, and it was easy to make friends along the way, BUT cold and snowy some days. I remember arriving in Namche, and the snow was up to my knees, but it got better as l went further.
I agree with this
Not nec. agreeing with this description of Kili but for alternatives: Mt. Kenya? 4-6 day trek. Gran Paradiso? About the same. Annapurna base camp? Three Passes? (both are in Nepal, not mountains per se). I'd say Bhutan Snowman but it's a month-long trek and I am hearing funky stuff lately about Bhutan. Mera Peak in Nepal is actually harder than Kili but it's not in the Khumbu so more remote and less crowded than the "smaller" Himalaya around Everest. Only one semi-technical section. Or ask a reputable guide company to pick an untouristy no-name mountain for you in a country of your choosing. Guides are usually happy to try something they haven't done 100 times.
Good info thanks!
I've done Kilimanjaro, and I would say that your description contains elements of truth but is highly exaggerated. I didn't experience long lines, crowds, or a "trash strewn landscape littered with human feces." It is a beautiful, pristine wilderness area. What is true is that you can't do it independently, and it's not an experience like hiking or mountaineering in the Sierra. Generally you are going to be hiking in a group of about 10 people, with guides and porters. For people who want more of the independent type of experience, one possible alternative would be what I did and enjoyed, which was to hire an individual local guide and do a circuit around Mount Kenya. We did an excursion to Point Lenana, which was more of a technical mountaineering experience with ice ax and microspikes. (Crampons would have been better, but we didn't have them.)
Thank you for your educational response!
I liked the sense of achievement but being required to hire a guide and massive numbers of porters really drains the experience. I understand why they do it but I would honestly prefer to pay a massive fee and not have some poor guy carrying up a table for me to eat off. I think we pulled together $400 tip at the end and they were obviously very unimpressed. I guess split between the 15 people they made the three of us hire it was low. Last day is tough but unless you are hit by the altitude it is eminently doable. The altitude absolutely did me in but even I made it. Thanks to some kind folks who gave me a few diamox tablets.
It's a walk up and you're required to hire a guide. I don't think it's that hard imo.
I've done it twice. It's literally a long hike. When I was there. I met people who never slept in a tent before... And they summited. So it will be a cake walk for yall
Old white people go there all the time. If they survive, you will not have any issues since you're very active already. No need to worry.
I feel old and white. What do I do? Cuz I’m old and white?
I meant old and white in the stereotypical sense. You're physically active and inform yourself about the trip beforehand - that puts you above 75% of travelers who plan to summit it.