What I Learnt Climbing Kili With My Son – a guest post by Ros Irving

Intro by Jae: What a treat it was recently to get an email from Ros Irving, who had heard the 3GKiliClimb story, and got in touch to say that she’s just climbed Kili with her 10 year old son, Sam. Ros offered to answer my questions so I sent back a slew of them! The brilliant response is below and Ros has given us permission to publish it as a guest post. She did say, “maybe you could tone down some of my comments about wee-ing!! Or make them a bit less blunt!” but at 3GKiliClimb.com we know our wonderful, pragmatic, supportive audience and don’t think you’re in need of censorship. Before you read it, I’d just like to take a second to say thanks and a huge “CONGRATULATIONS” to both Ros, and to Sam – who is one of the youngest people to summit Kili. Over to you Ros:

MY TIPS

–          We took Nalgene water bottles (not bladder packs) and it was brilliant to use one stuffed into a hiking sock as a hot water bottle overnight when it got cold (first night was colder than I expected overnight!) our lovely cooks happily filled it with hot water for us after supper and it was great to snuggle up to into a sleeping bag.

–        Stick all your clothes for tomorrow at the bottom of your sleeping bag the night before – it was after the first night when it was rather cold in the morning that I vowed to do that the next time (I am not much of a camper so all this came as new news to me!)

–         A bit gross… but here goes… take a spare/old water bottle for weeing into (this was Sam rather than me) that can sit in the “vestibule” of the tent overnight. Again we didn’t think this through beforehand, and on the first night camping Sam had to pee FOUR times overnight – because it was pitch black and freezing cold (and I felt I should go with him to be sure he could find his way back to the tent) it was freezing and disruptive! After that night he used an old tin with a lid that one of the cooks gave me, and slept better as a result.

–       Take lots of snacks – I made up sandwich bags each day for sam full of all the stuff I spend my life telling him NOT to eat normally. So we had Jelly babies, mini mars bars etc and loads of biscuits – he then had free rein to keep himself going. At all the water stops you want to quickly be able to have a snack even if not hungry – apparently eating LOADS helps with acclimatisation

–          I researched water purification tablets that DON’T taste of chlorine – and ended up giving them to most of the group as they were so good – they are called KATADYN and available on Amazon – they actually taste like normal water.

–         As I was worried that my son wouldn’t drink enough I bought loads of those new Robinsons squeezy cordials – to add to water- the ones that are highly concentrated and in packs about two inches square if you know what I mean.

–        Write your names very clearly on your water bottles ( I didn’t!) as if you are in a group- each morning the cooks take all the bottles, put them in a big basket and fill them up – and in our group lots of us had identical Nalgene bottles

–        For recharging small electronic devices I bought a “power chimp” (about £30 on Amazon) which takes 4 AA batteries and then simply connects to your cable for whatever device (via a USB port) it was great and I just threw a load of batteries in my duffel bag

–        We both took Diamox. There is no medically approved dosage for a minor so I had a chat with my doctor and gave Sam a half tablet in two doses either end of the day – (so a 125g dose) It is hard to say if it makes a difference. In our group of 17- about 6 people took Diamox and the rest didn’t. It gives you pins and needles in your fingers about 10 mins after taking it, for about 10 mins. I still had headaches and shortness of breath but didn’t feel nauseous at any point (lots of the team did – and threw up) Sam was generally okay (few small headaches) until summit night when he threw up at least four times on the way up. On reflection, I’d still take it again

–        I didn’t take Malaria tablets (but I made Sam do so) apart from in Moshi (before we started the climb) I didn’t see any mosquitos. Apparently there are very few at 1800 m or higher

–        I made Sam wear his skiing salopettes (with long johns underneath) for summit night – he was definitely not too hot in them, otherwise he wore ordinary walking trousers on the other days

–        I wore 3 base layers, 3 fleeces, a down gilet and a down coat plus a shell on summit night (and three pairs of trousers (skins/walking trousers and waterproofs) it was very cold- down to about minus 15. But I am reptilian in my feeling of coldness!

–        I left a bag of clean clothes/toiletries behind in the hotel for our return and it was lovely having some clean/new stuff to change into

–        Travel in walking trousers/hiking boots as our luggage came a day late (and only when we went back to Kilimanjaro airport to retrieve it!)

–        On the way back down we met quite a few children near the gate (Mweka gate I think) collecting firewood and Sam enjoyed giving them all his remaining snacks – the chocolate was great. If we had had any pens and pencils I am sure they would have gone down a treat

SUPERFLUOUS STUFF I PACKED

–        Books – despite being an avid reader I took two books up the mountain with me and they came down unread. Even though we were going to bed early we were sleeping (or trying to!) A pack of cards was about our intellectual limit!

–        Too many “changes” of clothes – even though we didn’t carry the duffel bags and so had enough space – it was just more to wade through in the mornings searching for things!  Once we were at day two we really just wore the same stuff but in greater or fewer layers. And when it was cold in the morning I had no desire to strip off and change!

–        My She–wee (again TMI – sorry!) on the route we just went behind boulders/trees and then used the long drops at camps. It is very worthwhile buying loads of those little packs of tissues and stuffing them in pockets – better and more accessible on the go than a whole loo roll!

–        Walking poles- personally I didn’t use them, but you can also hire them at the gate (Machame gate) when you set off – for about $20

–        I packed about 4 packs of baby wipes – and was planning to be clean. As per the point above, we ended up in the same clothes and so one pack would have been plenty!

Note from Jae: Thanks for all the brilliant advice Ros. It’s actually quite nice just to be told to expect to be filthy the whole time – at least I’m not going with any preconception that I might try to get clean each night. As someone who can’t usually get through 24 hours without washing my hair, let alone without showering, I have four weeks now to get my head around crustiness! I do remember lovely cousin Lou once telling me that the only way she could enjoy camping with her boys and Nigel, was to have a word with herself at the beginning telling herself that however dirty she felt she could be clean in an hour when she got home, so she wasn’t to worry about it!