Mt. Kilimanjaro
July 11, 2006
Dan Mallory, Barbara Mallory, Laura Mallory and Carlos Rojo Solis
Elevation
19,341 ft (5,895 meters)
Location
Tanzania
Range
the Eastern Rift Mountains
Coordinates
03°04’33″S 37°21’12″E
First ascent
1889 by Hans Meyer, Ludwig Purtscheller, Yohanas Kinyala Laywo
Our route
Lemosho Glade
On July, 2006 Barbara Mallory, age 55, Dan Mallory, age 56, daughter Laura, age 18 and friend Carlos Rojo Solis, age 19 arrived near Arusha, Tanzania to prepare to drive to the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro at 19,341 feet (5,895 meters) – the highest mountain in Africa.
The biggest challenge to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro is before you take the first step. There are no Canadian banks in Tanzania. Money is only accessible in large cities at ATM machines that limit the amount you can access daily per bank account to the equivalent of $375.00 U.S. in Tanzanian shillings. These shillings need to be converted to U.S. dollars at a high commission rate at banks or money exchangers at large hotels. Only new U.S. dollars printed after 1996 are acceptable so any money printed prior to that date that we brought from Canada was useless. Everyone wanted to be paid upfront and in cash for the car rental, outfitter’s fees, border fees, National Park fees etc.
The outfitter in Arusha informed us we would need one guide, one assistant guide, one cook and 12 porters to be allowed into the park and they suggested 16 to 20 porters. There would be an extra fee to transport all the support staff to the mountain because it took 3 days to get all the money required for the park fees.
We left Arusha by van but encountered brake problems which had to be fixed on route and then had a flat tire. As a result, we arrived late at the park entrance and were advised by the park superintendent that it was too late for us to depart that day. We would have to remain there that night paying additional camping fees for ourselves and the support staff. Dan persuaded the official to allow us to begin our hike that afternoon.
We finally took our fist step to climb Kilimanjaro arriving at Forest Camp in the dark but were relieved to be underway. Our route was the less traveled and more difficult Lemosho Glade route which has the very steep and challenging Baranco Wall to scale. At the High Camp, we rose at 11p.m. to start the summit attempt in the dark and arrived at the Uruhu summit on the crater rim of Mt. Kilimanjaro as the sun rose at about 5 a.m.
After overcoming the challenges of getting to the mountain, the actual climb was less significant. It was, however, a very worthwhile and scenic trek and seeing Mt. Kilimanjaro with reflective moonlight on its snow covered summit is an image to remember and with global warming will soon not exist.