Scout the Globe Africa - Limitless Adventures Summits Kilimanjaro

Off on another adventure and bringing in more people on the around the world scouting trip. We decided to spend some time in Africa climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with Jason, and Matt, Sandy and Christy. Mt. Kilimanjaro is the largest mountain in Africa as well as the biggest free standing mountain in the world at 19,335.6 ft. It is “The Roof of Africa”.

Sandy and Jason flew in from Colorado to meet Matt and Christy who were coming from Thailand and Australia on their 3 month scouting tour. We had a great reunion with friend and guide Festo Mtui (our head guide for the week), when he picked us up at the airport and drove us to the Ilburu Safari Lodge were we all met up for some dinner. Festo has been guiding clients up the mountain for many years and we first met him 6 years ago when Jason first climbed Kilimanjaro. A number of years later, Sandy had the opportunity to climb with Festo twice! The next day was spent prepping for the mountain and relaxing pool side. It was great catching up on stories from all the fun SMS Adventures were having all around the world; from home in Colorado to Australia and Thailand. The next 6 days were going to be tough so we hit the hay early.

Off to the mountain we went. At the gate all the bags were weighed and divvied out to the 12 porters including our guide, two assistants, a cook, and eight others. Day one went really smooth we all settled in to a really good pace after Emanuel (our assistant guide) told us to slow down “Pole-Pole” in Swahili. It was amazing seeing the vastness of the Kilimanjaro rainforest on day one. We would just be hiking and all of a sudden it would open up with beautiful views of moss covered trees and valleys, it was indescribable. We made it to Machame camp in about 6 hours, about normal speed for acclimation, signed in and had a great dinner. The Machame camp was almost at the top of the rain forest, where the trees start thinning out and getting much smaller just a great spot for the first night.

After a good night’s sleep we started off day two around nine. We ate a really good breakfast, packed up and started hiking. Day two was really cool, almost surreal. As we climbed out of the rain forest the fog rolled in and blanketed the mountain. It felt like we were in the movie Sleepy Hollow. We got a pace going keeping together and scrambling on the rocks as we traversed around and up the mountain to our next camp site. It only took four hours to get to Shira camp. At camp Festo took us and a Dutch couple we met on the trail to the Shira caves. He told us stories of when they use to sleep in the caves and build fires to stay warm. It was really good to have a guide that talked with us, ate with us, shared his stories and just wanted us to be happy. Most of the others would just help when needed and not interact with the climbers. That is why we will use Festo for all our future trips to Kilimanjaro.

Just like every day we started the third day with a big breakfast and packing up camp. It was a great day. We climbed to 4600 meters or 14,000 feet and then came back down to the same elevation as our last camp. Lunch was really cool. We got to eat at the Lava Towers (the highest point of the day) and we got to climb around on the lava rocks, a really nice break from all the hiking. Then we moved on back down to Baranco camp, another nice change…we actually went down hill. Matt and I did some Freestyle rock hopping that really scared our guides and cruised back down to 3900 meters where our camp was. It was a great day all in all. We all felt very strong and even though we left last of three groups we got to camp first. At camp we got our first site of the next days trail. Breakfast wall was going to be the start and I’ll tell you we were getting pretty excited.

Wow we were all really excited for our fourth day on the mountain. We had a lot to look forward to, Breakfast wall, some 5th class climbing and getting to our last camp. Breakfast wall was awesome after some initial scrambling Festo saw we had good technical climbing skills and took us up some harder sections he called short cuts. It was a ton of fun climbing around at 11,000-13,000 feet. It ended up being a really long day we went all the way to Barafu camp at 4600 meters. Most people stop at another camp to help acclimatize which is about 3 hours hike, but we were on a tight schedule so we kept on moving for a 6 hour hike to Barafu camp. We arrived at Barafu camp around 3:30 pm. Most people get some dinner and go strait to bed when they get to camp because they wake up at midnight. We actually got to relax and watch an amazingly beautiful sunset because we decided to sleep in a little and watch the sun rise from camp and then start hiking around 6:00am. Camp was great, we relaxed and got some great food then went to bed thinking about our summit the very next day.

I have to say sleeping in until 5:30am was the way to go…not only does it improve your chances of summiting but the sunset was terrific from camp. We got to eat a good breakfast in a warm tent and started hiking around 6:00am. The summit day is always hard and very slow. Moving to the summit we watched the sun rise and got nice and warm settling into a nice flow. While we were climbing, the top seemed to get further and further away but all of a sudden we saw it and it was so close. We arrived at Stella Point in five hours and finally got the first view of the summit about 45 minutes away. It looked so close and it was. Another forty five minutes and all six of us, Jason, Matt, Sandy, Christy, Festo and Emanuel were at Kibo Peak 19335.6 feet (5895 meters) the highest of the 3 peaks on the Kilimanjaro Mountain range. The Summit was so inspiring we had the glacier and the crater all to ourselves, the mountain was ours!! We stayed at Kibo for a while took some pictures and off we went for the two hour run down. It was almost like skiing down the sand we ran and slid the whole way. Back at Barafu we were all so ecstatic but we slowly settled down from our excitement and ate some dinner. We were happy everyone made it and very tired at the same time. Off to bed we went dreaming of nice showers and remembering all the stories of the mountain.

So you would think coming down the mountain after summiting would be the easy part but it is long and grueling. It took four hours of steep decent on the last day to go about 25 kilometers. Most groups camp for one night on the way down, however like we said….a tight schedule to keep so we went all the way to the bottom in one day. Halfway running halfway walking we made it down. It’s kind of funny that it takes a total of 5 days to climb 60 kilometers and only 6 total hours to come down a total of 30 kilometers.

This was a great trip for the Limitless  guys and the people who joined us. We had lots of good learning experiences of what to offer everyone down the road. We learned we have the best guide around and that summiting in the day improves your chances dramatically, even though we will offer summit sunrises if that’s what you desire. What an amazing mountain! I invite anyone who wants to climb Kilimanjaro to contact us. We will set you up with the best trip imaginable with the best people.

Tags: Hiking | Mountaineering | Climbing