About Team Kilimanjaro

Team Kilimanjaro currently comprises 17 administrative staff and 707 mountain staff, consisting of 82 guides and assistant guides, 64 cooks and 561 porters. Our mountain staff are divided into 16 close-knit teams each led by a chief guide who reports daily from the mountain, directly to our Expedition Coordinator. Consistently excellent performance is demanded by the British management who are available night and day to deal with contingencies and to oversee the planning and preparation of all expeditions.

TK’s staffing procedures are entirely unique. Allocation of work to our guides, cooks and porters is strictly on the basis of merit, continued performance and positive feedback from climbers. We have daily training assessments for those not on the mountain, at which team leaders will score all candidates for effort and ability. Only the most dedicated and hardworking will be assigned to the next expedition. In this way with all members of Team Kilimanjaro on permanent assessment we aim to guarantee against complacency and waning performance and to create a healthy and competitive ethos in which hard work, reliability and punctuality are rewarded.

John Rees-Evans, Team Kilimanjaro

John served with two British Army units before beginning life as an expeditioneer. He has led various expeditions throughout the world. Complementary to his role with TK he serves as a mountain safety consultant to Kilimanjaro National Park and was responsible for determining the cause of the tragic accident of 4th January 2006 which resulted in the Western Breach assault route being closed.

He holds the verified British speed record for Kilimanjaro, has created a completely new route on the north side of Kilimanjaro that ascends the Credner Glacier and traverses the Crater, and has advised the National Parks authorities on environmental impact reduction.

John is currently in training to attempt the world’s first continuous 5,000 metre vertical speed ascent to Kilimanjaro’s summit.

Rebecca Rees-Evans, Team Kilimanjaro

Rebecca holds the woman’s world record as the fastest woman to climb Kilimanjaro and is also the first woman to have taken the unprecedented risk of speed climbing the mountain, and without full prior acclimatisation. She ascended in 13 hours 16 minutes and 37 seconds.

Rebecca’s family also have a unique relationship with Kilimanjaro, having all summitted together on a special expedition for which permission was granted in consideration of the family’s unusual level of experience  with altitude. The youngest member of the family, Bran, was 5 years 136 days of age on summit day.

The family had all summited Mount Meru (4,584m) two weeks previously and so were able to acclimatise easily on Kilimanjaro, completing the ascent and descent in just four days, using TK V Shira.

David Squire, Senior Expedition Coordinator, Team Kilimanjaro

An ex-British Army soldier, David’s service has seen him on active duty in the Falklands; leading various mountaineering and adventurous expeditions worldwide, including to Canada, Kenya, the German and Austrian Alps and the Pyrenees.

Irrepressibly enthusiastic to infect others with his passion for the outdoors, David has a valuable and wide array of experience that includes regular voluntary service with young people, initiating them into the field of adventurous pursuits.

The sole involvement of just one tightly knit organisation from the moment of a climber’s first contact, through their climb, and down to safety again, means that Team Kilimanjaro are able to  respond effortlessly to a wide array of requests to customise hybrid routes specifically to meet a group’s demands. On David’s penultimate expedition on Kilimanjaro he pioneered a rare hybrid variant that incorporated elements of Machame, The Western Breach, and Rongai, while spanning all three support levels, Lite, Advantage and Excel.  Subsequent to that he gained in-depth insights into the needs of families, by summitting via Machame with his wife, daughter and two 15 year old sons.  

We are aware that there is considerable movement towards climbers wanting customised routes that few, if any, have ever repeated. David’s experience and zest to tackle such new and exciting challenges makes him ideally placed to assist with these projects.

David can be contacted directly at the email address at right.

Bianca Angelucci, Expedition Coordinator, Team Kilimanjaro

Bianca has spent nearly all of her life in Africa and would barely ever be indoors if she could help it. She is however an extremely diligent and swift organiser and thoroughly enjoys facilitating arrangements for others to do what she herself loves.

Bianca mans our Cape Town office and is a discerning frequenter of some of the world’s best beaches. Bianca also has a wealth of knowledge on Zanzibar and liaises daily with many well placed contacts on the island and so is well placed to advise on where best to spend your post-climb R&R.

Bianca can be contacted directly at the email address at right.

Ally Rees-Evans, Expedition Coordinator, Team Kilimanjaro

Born in Africa, Ally is our most recent addition to the coordination team and brings a broad range of experience gained from within the UK and Africa to her role. Ally is a natural motivator and recently led a team of nine climbers on TK Rongai, that included her 15 year old daughter.

Ally’s last expedition followed very recent knee surgery, so she is acutely and freshly aware of the stresses and challenges of injury management in the run up to a Kilimanjaro climb, as well as the demands involved in training and preparing for the mountain while managing the needs of a young family.

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