Facts of Mount Kilimanjaro

 

The British founders of Team Kilimanjaro climbed in several mountain ranges throughout the world before deciding to concentrate their principal efforts on Kilimanjaro. There are many good reasons for their choice that will be obvious to anyone who has been privileged enough to spend time in the Kilimanjaro region, and of course, to have climbed the mountain.

 

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Mount Kilimanjaro National Park

 

Kilimanjaro is very competently managed by KINAPA, (Kilimanjaro National Park Authority), whose headquarters is at the Marangu Gate, from where all climbs on the Marangu Route begin and end, and where Rongai Route and TK Rongai climbs are registered and end. KINAPA reports directly to Tanzania National Parks Authority, or TANAPA, whose offices are in Arusha, and mainly comprises administrators and conservationists. While there are no mountaineers employed by KINAPA, they nonetheless frequently work with externally subcontracted East African mountaineers such as Willy Shikuku in Kenya, or with foreign climbers, such as our director, when it is necessary to be able to consult on matters of mountain safety or to obtain expert perspectives on route selection.

 

The access to both wildlife and mountaineering expertise that the park authorities enjoy mean that Kilimanjaro National Park is bearing up reasonably well against the threats against its sustainability, as well as managing the ongoing challenge of facilitating the safe movement of climbers along six trails and their many variants, and up three assault routes.

 

In spite of their very obvious successes - particularly with their excellent trail maintenance on the busiest routes and their new generation of mountain toilets that are able to be emptied of waste (rather than the waste remaining in the ground as per the old model), there are however some continued causes for concern which we believe still need to be addressed.

 

Kilimanjaro needs more assault routes

 

1. With some 20,000 - 35,000 climbers attempting to climb Kilimanjaro annually, we believe that there should be two further assault routes available, in addition to Barafu, Kibo and the Western Breach. We believe that assaults should be permitted from Credner Glacier and Pofu Ridge. Allowing assaults from the north would ensure that Kilimanjaro appealed to a wider segment of climbers, including those who seek to have a technical component in their high-altitude challenge, since the Credner assault requires that the Northern Icefields be traversed, and that climbers should be competent in the use of crampons, ropes and ice-axe. Opening these two assault routes would reduce summit crowds and spread the environmental impact caused by congestion, more evenly across the mountain, thereby representing less of a threat to Kilimanjaro’s fragile ecology.

 

Details of the Credner assault can be seen towards the end of this document.

 

Arresting deforestation on Kilimanjaro

 

While we are generally speaking ideologically strongly opposed to measures that seek to interfere with the traditional ways of life of indigenous people, (which is why we are unable to support the otherwise nigh-unanimously praised campaign, 1Goal: Education for All, which seeks to ask the Tanzanian government to try yet again to force the Hadzabe to ask their children to reject their traditional hunter-gatherer way of life in favour of adopting what some westerners believe to be a better way of life), we nonetheless believe that the routine deforestation perpetrated by local women on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, should be arrested. The local women are very poor and do not have the means to obtain fuel for cooking, so they surreptitiously enter the forests and cut wood. Regrettably, the wood that is cut is not replaced, and - as is evident from aerial imagery - Kilimanjaro’s forests are shrinking. The denuding of Kilimanjaro’s vegetation prevents moisture being retained and reduces precipitation, meaning that at high elevations there is less snowfall and re-glaciation.

 

As the glaciers disappear, the rivers shrink, and the civilization below that relies on these rivers to sustain their villages and water their cattle, suffers greatly. The extent of this suffering is very pronounced on the north side of the mountain where it is nowadays nigh impossible for Maasai to maintain their herds.

 

We believe that a fund should be made available that would provide cooking fuel to the local women and that patrols should be conducted to ensure that no more deforestation occurs.

 

In spite of our working closely with Tanzania National Parks in 2006 to develop a new route along which it would be possible to organise research expeditions that could quantitatively monitor de-glaciation as a result of global climate change and illegal local forest depletion, our new route remains unopened. Details of the route are available here. Those who care for the ecology of Kilimanjaro are invited to approach Tanzania National Parks independently and make similar such recommendations. High volumes of expressed concern will have a significant impact of the organisation’s policy-making over the next few years.

 

Crater Camp is presently an ecological failure and should have enhanced safety facilities

 

While we continue to use Crater Camp for our Excel Series climbs, we believe that it should be temporarily shifted several hundred metres from its present location, while a clean up operation is conducted. The operation should include the installation of several toilets that have reservoirs that allow the accumulated waste to be removed and carried down the mountain, as climb operations are evidently supplying adequate facilities for their staff at this location, and the present requirements are impossible to enforce since the camp is not manned by any KINAPA personnel. We also believe that a new minimal environmental impact hut should be erected close to the present camp site. The hut should have a small dormitory for some 4 additional users and be staffed by rangers that have received enhanced high altitude medical training. TANAPA should invite doctors and physiologists with a special interest in high altitude research to regularly occupy the hut while the rangers conduct their duties. The hut should be equipped with several modern lightweight stretchers and contain oxygen canisters for use in medical emergencies.

 

Mount Kilimanjaro, The Volcano

 

Kilimanjaro is a volcano situated at the southern extremity of the northern Great Rift Valley. The mountain comprises three volcanic outcrops; from the west, Shira, Kibo, and Mawenzi. While Mawenzi is some 750 metres lower than Kibo, it is conjectured that she was once higher but has since collapsed.

 

If you still have the presence of mind to read the summit sign board after battling through high altitude winds in darkness, up some 1,200 metres of slope from your chosen high camp, with - for the final hour - around only 48 - 52% of the oxygen available at sea level, you’ll read the words:

 

Congratulations! You are now at Uhuru Peak, Tanzania, 5895 metres above mean sea level; Africa’s highest point; world’s highest free-standing mountain; one of world’s largest volcanoes. Welcome!

 

We intend to discuss these claims shortly.

 

Coming soon:

 

Mount Kilimanjaro History

 

While it may of course have been climbed much earlier, the first people recorded to have climbed Kilimanjaro, were Hans Meyer, Ludwig Putscheller, and Yohani Lauwo, the great grandfather of Abel Lauwo, who - as it happens - may possibly accompany some of our readers on their climb...

Arrival into East Africa and Pre-Climb Events

 

On the Mountain with Team Kilimanjaro

 

Post-Climb Events and Departure from East Africa

 

Safety Equipment

 

High Altitude Information

 

Mountain Sickness