The last eruption on Kilimanjaro was between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago, so it is fairly safe to assume that despite what we said in the blog on April Fool’s Day, there is little risk of any volcanic action. I am very grateful for that: I feel very sorry for the poor people in Nepal whose lives have been devastated by the earthquake in the Everest area.
There are seven official ways up the mountain: we will be taking the Lemosho route. Climbing Kili is strictly regulated by the Tanzanian Government. You have to be part of an organized group: you can’t just decide to go up with your mates! The Lemosho route is possibly the longest route and that is why we are taking it. It will take us seven days to walk up to the top – if we make it – and the longer it takes, the better the chances are of getting up. Exodus say that 95% of their travellers make it to the top on this route, whereas in general, less than 70% of climbers succeed. Taking our time gives us a better chance of coping with the change in altitude. People who are used to living at high altitudes – like the guides and porters who will be with us – are much less likely to get altitude sickness.
I was quite amazed to read that a mountain guide ran to the top and back in August last year in six hours forty two minutes. I can’t start to imagine that level of fitness! So many people spend several days climbing and still don’t make it – it is all so hard to understand.
Exodus has been taking adults up Kili for decades, but the family group departures in August this year will be the first time that they have taken teenagers. However, it seems that a seven year old American boy Keats Boyd has climbed the mountain, despite the fact that the park authorities make it clear than no-one under the age of ten is permitted to enter. It seems that his parents lied about his age: they say he was absolutely determined to do it.
Although it will take us a week to climb up, it is expected that we will come down again in a day and a half. We do the last bit of the climb up between mid-night and dawn, when the scree at the top is frozen. That makes it easier – I am not sure that is the right word – to climb on. When we start to come down, the scree will have defrosted and is likely to be moving about. On holiday in Dorset recently I wondered if clambering on Chesil Beach was a bit like it will be on the descent. The pebbles were piled up really steeply and it was very scrabbly to move about on them at all. Perhaps I should go back there again for a bit of practice. They say that you can develop a kind of yomping style of moving over the scree, sort of running and going with the movement underneath you. Maybe I will try to find a bit of steep pebbly beach on the Kentish coast and give it a go – though I might get a few funny looks from those around me.
The oldest woman recorded to have done the climb was an eighty-four year old in 2010 – so I am fairly young in comparison. She, however, had a history to climbing behind her, whereas I am still pretty much a mountain virgin. If we make it, we will be the first three generation team including a granny, ever to do it. I dare say almost straight away afterwards, there will be another feisty eighty-something year old doing the climb – a great-granny as part of a four generation team. But maybe we will make it and hold the record for a wee while first.