TOP 5 EXPEDITIONS
Tanzania Journals
Kilimanjaro - Lemosho via Western Breach
It’s almost 3 years since we climbed the highest peak on the South American continent, Mount Aconcagua. It was the hardest 18 days of my life. A lot of tears and digging deep into your soul to keep those legs pumping to get to the top of the mountain in air so thin that it was a major physical ask just to roll up your sleeping bag in the mornings.
That was the first mountain that we got the PNG flag up to.
6 months ago the seed started to grow in my mind that its time for another adventure. Slowly started dropping hints to Mark “the reluctant husband” that maybe its time to take the PNG flag up another mountain. He becomes hard of hearing whenever the word mountain is mentioned. I approached Derek Hartshorne our tent mate on Aconcagua and another long term resident of PNG. He is always easy to persuade to go on any adventure. It got to the stage that Mark just couldn’t avoid the inevitable, it was going to happen and it was a given that he would tag along. Our mountain of choice this time was Mount Kilimanjaro, only 19,300 feet compared to Aconcagua at 23,000 feet. Only 8 days instead of 18, a piece of cake. (hah)
The only thing that didn’t thrill me was spending 8 days sleeping between the two blokes in the tent. Men behaving badly is an understatement with those two in a confined space. The thing that did excite me though was that we didn’t have to take pee bottles along with us this time. For us gals I tell you they are your worst nightmare. This mountain was not that cold that we couldn’t whip outside for a quick wee wee at night.
To solve my sleeping arrangements with tongue in cheek I approached Emma dewit to see if she would like to join us. Emma another long term resident of PNG had done Kokoda and Mt Wilhelm with us. For Emma to take this on was a huge leap of faith out of her comfort zone. Not only that but Emma was leaving her husband Byron and two young daughters behind for 15 days to go climb a mountain on the other side of the world. A very big ask.
We spoke to Dr Paul Chivers-Crouch the Aussie High Com Dr about which route we should be taking as he has done Kilimanjaro twice. The 4 of us have a mutual hate of anything touristy and we didn’t want to be trekking up the mountain with a cast of 1000’s. So the route is now decided the tickets are booked and we’ve had the booze and intravenous drugs party so that we don’t catch any horrible diseases.
This trip was organized through Peter at No Roads Expeditions. They were very aware of what sort of trip we were wanting and it was so cool to be up the mountain when Peter rang our Guide and suggested we divert our route up the Western Breach to avoid other climbers. It was the best suggestion ever and I encourage anyone climbing this mountain to seriously consider this route.
The flag is packed and after 23hrs of flying and transiting we arrived in Moshi, Tanzania. It’s such a relief to get off the plane and have someone their meeting you. Eric our guide is a Masai. Tall thin nomadic Africans that drape themselves in red shawls and can bounce incredibly high off the ground holding their spears. Although I found it hard to get my mind around Eric bouncing anywhere.
We crawled into bed at 11pm that night only to be awoken by 30% of Moshi’s population calling to Allah at 5am in the morning.
While waiting for the truck to pick us up to go and get our climbing permits Derek and Mark wondered out the gate to view the territory. They came screaming back barely able to speak flapping their arms up and down indicating we should follow them back outside.
The four of us just stood in awe our mouths open, in front of us is this HUGE piece of free standing rock covered in snow that we are about to climb. Emma wanted to go back home to PNG.
No one mentioned the red dust. We are in the bus heading up to the start of the track in our nice clean clothes and the dreaded red dust starts to penetrate every pore and orifice of our bodies. We think dear god, not only is this a rather large mountain but surely we don’t have to put up with this red crap all the way up it.
On arrival at the start of the track Eric and porters sorted out all the food and gear. At 2:30 on the 7th October we started walking up the mountain. It was so good to get those legs moving. There are baboons walking along aside us, (ghastly creatures with pink bums) black and while calobuse monkeys swinging in the trees and lots of bird life, life is good. We are all so excited babbling away and its only 3 hours walking and we arrive at Big Tree Camp Site. Our porters have gone ahead and put our tents and mess tent up, and a cup of tea is on hand. They have won me over, it’s a very important requirement when out trekking to have a cup of tea handed to you as soon as you get into camp. We have chairs and a table in the mess tent and a 3 course meal by candlelight. Luxury.
Best of all are the loos, they are long drops but anything is better than the dreaded pee bottle.
Emma and I snuggle up in our tent and I remember thinking how wonderful my big down sleeping bag is. I honestly can’t remember it being so large and roomy. In the morning we are chatting to the boys in the tent beside us and Mark asks me how I slept. Very soundly thank you Mark. How did you sleep? Not well Pam I felt as though I was sleeping in a condom all night. By the way what letter does your sleeping bag tag have on it? I yell back “L”. What do you think that stands for Pam? Emma yells back “ladies” she asks him what his tag has on it. “S” yells back Mark. Emma tells him that stands for stupid. We swap sleeping bags and Mark doesn’t mention it again.
Started walking 8:30am steadily climbing up through the jungle with more monkeys’ swinging around our heads. The vegetation begins to change to alpine scrub. Emma thinks she’s in Scotland with the heather, thistles, nettles and dock leaves. Every morning about 10am the mist starts to come in and it gets very cold. We are now on the Shira Plateau and arrive at Shira 1 campsite for our second night. Fantastic views of the Rift Valley and Mount Meru.
Derek, Mark and myself are all traveling well. Emma is starting to show signs of altitude sickness. Dinner is not appealing to her in fact it’s that unappealing that to our horror she throws up in the mess tent. Well, what can one say to that, it’s a hard party trick to beat? I said that Derek was okay and outwardly showing now signs of altitude but in hindsight maybe not. He’s telling us about the scary beast scratching about outside the tent that night. The next night Mark figures out it’s his beard rubbing up against his pillow.
Next day the wildlife is down to a few lizards and lost birds. We crossed the plateau in a hailstorm. Who said it didn’t get that cold on this mountain. Emma is not good she is slowing down and vomiting. Typical signs of the effects of altitude. We all start pulling together as a team now to get Emma through this. We become a mountain family and give her heaps of encouragement. She will walk through this and come right, although she doesn’t believe us at the time. We play “airplanes into the hanger” with her soupspoon to get her to eat that night.
The next day we pass a stretcher. Derek comments that we’re that high even the stretchers died. Today is the first time we run into other trekkers and there are 100’s of them. The four of us go into shock and lose the plot, this is not what we want. Mark is now starting to show the effects of altitude he is walking behind us and mumbling away to the mountain spirits. We tell him to tell them to piss off. There’s no room in his head for them. Emma is starting to improve thank goodness. Derek is great, I’m just plodding along keeping up. We over night beside this huge Lava Tower with about 30 other climbers.
Next morning thank goodness they head off on another route and we head straight up. We have changed our course to avoid the crowd. We now head up towards the Western Breach a not so climbed area of the mountain. Emma is struggling with her camel pack no water coming through, after taking it out straightening the hose and fiddling around with it Mark comes along and turns her mouth piece on, the water flows freely. Derek can’t get his camera to go. Complains the cold has flattened his batteries. He hasn’t turned it on. It’s all typical signs of altitude.
Next campsite found myself in a very scary situation. Went to the toilet and came out to a complete white out. I couldn’t find my way back to the tents. Kept thinking it would be in the Post Courier back in PNG “she got lost and died coming back from the loo”. A quick gap in the mist and I sighted the tents. The boys put up a flag so that we could find our way back after that. We decided it was less dangerous just to go outside our tent.
That evening Emma and I were sick again. It wasn’t the altitude. We ate a whole packet of lollies between us.
Next day it’s straight up again scrambling over rocks. God, its exhausting when the air is so thin. Everybody is going well except me. We get into camp and I crawl into my sleeping bag shattered and battling a lung infection. The top is just above us, if I have to walk on my hands and knees tomorrow I will get there. Eric the guide drags me out of my sleeping bag and makes me go for another walk to try and adapt to the altitude.
No matter how awful you feel we only have to look out our tent doors and there is this huge glacier staring right at us to make you feel better. It’s over 10 stories high and many football fields wide. The ice is sky blue and is nature at its best.
We are trying to sleep at almost 19,000 feet. Who are we kidding, you don’t sleep at that height. We spend all night just trying to get enough oxygen to breath.
At last its 4am and a quick cup of tea and we are climbing by 5am. We have all the gear on to combat the cold. We head up the wrong way for about 30 minutes scrambling over rocks which is energy sapping before we find the right trail in the dark. It’s a full moon and the stars are out. It’s awesome. Derek and Emma are going so well, it takes them an hour to get to the summit and are there to watch the sun come up. Mark is staying behind with me and we arrive 15 minutes later. We cry, it’s all very emotional. We dig out the PNG flag and get the photos taken quickly. Our apologies for holding it upside down. Our fingers and toes are freezing, we can’t stay up here too long. We are on the top of Kilimanjaro looking down on Africa. The view is something that we can’t explain, you had to be there. Glistening ice blue glaciers everywhere.
Its time to start down, yuk. We hate going down hill especially sliding down the scree, which goes for about 3 hours. It’s incredibly hard on your thighs and no matter how much training you do nothing can train you for this.
We are going down the tourist route, as it’s the quickest way off the mountain. We pass people going up in various stages of agony. We look at them and thank the mountain gods for not taking us up that route. We also find out that two people died on the mountain from altitude sickness the same week that we climbed. We passed the stretcher bearers heading up the mountain to take one body off. A sobering thought.
We dropped over 2700 metres to our campsite that night. Heaps of people camping there although we were one of the first lot in arriving around 2pm. We were sitting outside our tents the boys drinking beer, Emma and I were finishing off our bottle of baileys watching these poor sods still staggering in at 6:30. They had been going since midnight.
We got off the mountain the next day. Eric bought out a bottle of red to celebrate at the bottom while we signed out and picked up our certificates.
You soon forget about the headaches, lack of breath, lack of appetite, vomiting and all the ghastly symptoms of altitude. When you stand on the top and look down on Africa it cures you instantly of all that. We stood there with our arms around each other and wished all our friends could experience this as well.
We apologise for the very basic way we describe things. But this is what its like on a mountain. Dignity goes out the window, its no use glossing it over, how we have explained it is a very mild version of how we all actually felt at different times on the mountain. There were tears of frustration and tears of happiness. We held each other at various times while we were sick but it all pales into insignificance when you stand on the top.
Would we climb another mountain? Definitely, bring it on.
Kilimanjaro - Umbwe Track via Western Breach - Tanzania
Tanzania Africa
Kilimanjaro trip, my mountain diary…….
Adventurers: Peter “Guru” Miller, Gary “Cookie” Cooke, Stefan Larrson, John Sheridan and me ….Mark “Carts” Carter
Wow what an amazing experience, as they say in the classics “oh the serenity”.
I wasn’t really prepared at all for the sheer size of this volcanic mountain rising out of the fields of Tanzania. Yeah I knew it was the highest in Africa (5895m) but hey I’ve been to Kosciusko and how big can it be really if trekkers with little or no experience do it all the time……a walk in the park as one of my fellow trekkers said often, he didn’t make it by the way after succumbing to the dreaded altitude sickness but more on that later.
The days prior to the trek commencing were spent travelling around doing the safari thing from our base at “Springlands” hotel just outside Moshi.
A 3 day safari took in the many beasties found in the National Parks of Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro crater and Tarangire National Park. A veritable who’s who of African wildlife ranging from the many (and I mean many) wildebeest, zebra, elephant and giraffe, hippo and gazelle to the few- hyena, jackal, lion and cheetah.
All the while Kilimanjaro kept her (it’s a mother earth thing) head in the clouds not revealing her true height until the day we started the trek.
Trek Day 1: A very nervous start to the day, with still no sign of the guru who had been delayed by an airport bungle. We were still not used to “Africa time” where nothing happens in a hurry. So we breakfasted, packed and waited …….and waited.
Peter finally rolled in resembling a trekking celebrity handing out “No Roads“ merchandise and joking with the locals. Our guide Eric arrived then and we were off in a van thumping along some dirt roads that assaulted the kidnies. As we drove through the villages of the cultivated zone, children waved and adults stared, causing me to wonder what they thought about all these foreigners coming to their country to climb a mountain. We rounded a bend and the vegetation thinned and the first true sighting of the top of Kilimanjaro revealed itself.
A glance at Cookie confirmed that we were indeed insane and how could I get off this ride.
At a village clearing the van came to a stop and we piled out to find a large group of local men lined up for “Porter” selection. Eric told me later that a good porter had to be strong, be safe, be friendly and be reliable………after the experience I would like to add..be an inspiration to the trekkers.
As we set off up the Umbwe route (at a pace later admonished by Eric), life was great, everybody looked fit and excited about what lay ahead. The vegetation was lush and the sun shone down through the tree canopy.
We were indeed the chosen ones! ….Everybody drink now!!!......yes Eric.
Camp night one…Umbwe cave camp 2850m…wow great day, worked up a sweat humping my little day pack approximate weight 7kg up the steady but relatively easy incline. (Porters carry b/n 20-25 kg) On night one Stefan wanted to sleep outside the tent in his bivvy bag.
Eric told him that a Leopard may come in the night and eat his face …or maybe some Jackals…. And I thought the wombats at Wilson’s Prom were bad!
Trek Day 2: In the early morning light I realised that:
1. My sleeping bag wasn’t warm enough and,
2. My thermarest could be used as an instrument of torture and,
3. I had another 4 nights to go getting higher and therefore colder….bummer
Oh well the sun was out , porridge was ready and the crew were hungry and keen to get into it and I was glad to see Stefan’s face was still intact.
As we began the morning trek through mist and fog the mountain vegetation started to change noticeably as we began to leave the lush forest behind us and enter a land of bearded moss cascading from tree tops and then higher still, giant succulents ( senecios kilimanjari) up to 5m high sprouting from the now obvious volcanic soil. This transition from the forest to the heather then moorland was really dramatic as the vegetation thinned and the mountain and its glaciers were on full display.
The trek on day 2 was again fairly warm until the sun disappeared behind the mountain. Trekking conditions were excellent, with reasonably easy tracks, great views and a good pace. At the end of the day everybody was happy with their day apart from John who was feeling a bit ordinary (headaches, and a bit of nausea).
Classic altitude sickness symptoms…….already, we all thought. (we were only at about 3700m- but lets not talk about heights.)
Unlike some of my fellow trekkers I tried to deny the obsession with altitude, having some philosophical belief that if I didn’t know how high I was I would remain immune from altitude sickness. Whilst I knew that this was an irrational train of thought the discussions about altitude sickness had begun to worry us all. I decided to take an aspirin and go to bed. Barranco Camp 3950mt.
Trek Day 3.. Up again early …bad night in the bag, estimated sleep time around 4 hrs. , estimated snorers in camp …lost count.
Objective for today is getting to Arrow glacier ….this looked so far away at the end of day one but another 6-7 hrs. and we will be there …I believe a walk in the park was mentioned…again
Another frequently used phrase by Eric the guide was “hey Guys where are the roads?
to which we chanted in increasingly monosyllabic tones ...”there’s no roads Eric”…
Guess you had to be there but it certainly annoyed the hell out of Peter, patiently filming his Kili doco.
As we started to enter the Alpine desert zone, trekking started to get pretty serious with numerous steep rock sections to navigate and the tracks becoming narrow and unstable. Many hours were spent trekking in relative silence concentrating on pace and foot fall.
The vegetation had become sparse with the soil changing to volcanic scree. There were mosses, lichens and everlasting flowers still in abundance but little vegetation above waist height.
It wasn’t until the lunch break that we realised that Stefan was feeling crook. Nothing to worry about we thought, one of the fittest, just like John the previous day, Stefan will bounce back.
Trek Day 4. Arrow Glacier Camp 4908m
Stefan was stuffed, the last 200m had completely sapped his energy and he was very tired and nauseas. The porters had once again done a wonderful job of getting ahead of us and setting up camp and starting dinner. We all knew that Stefan was in a real bad way when he was unable to hold down any food or liquid, and had to force himself to eat. Eric hit us with the grim reality whilst Stef was off vomiting again, that save a miracle recovery, Stefan would not be able to go on. Our walk in the park was definitely over….more so in the morning!
Cookie took a small head ache to bed and woke up with the mother of all headaches. Cerebral oedema in medical speak, in reality he was in a world of pain, so intense that when I patted him on the back he nearly collapsed.
Our happy party of five trekkers had become a somewhat depressed group of three as we watched both Stefan and Gary and several porters start their way slowly down the track towards Shira Plateau and a waiting 4X4 rescue vehicle ( this hellish trip was to take over 8 hours).
To top it off we had our hardest day of the trek ahead of us, the Western Breach. The guide book describes this section almost cheerfully as an exhilarating scramble.
Unfortunately due to the morning events and a reminder of the hazards when Eric related the story of a young Swedish trekker fatally injured by a rock fall on this section only two weeks prior, we weren’t feeling overly cheery.
Our mood lifted with the terrain as we did begin to cheerfully scramble our way upwards over rock ledges and navigate tracks unrecognisable to all but the guides. The ascent was to take around six hours to the Crater Camp and made me feel like a real mountain climber. Totally exhausted but elated to have made it.
Camping alongside the impressive Furtwangler Glacier in the crater of a volcano was an amazing experience. Bloody cold….never believe an African when you ask him the temperature. Eric’s estimated 0 degrees was later confirmed to be minus 17. A warped sense of humour had our Eric, later telling me it was good luck for me to be vomiting on the morning of our ascent to the summit.
Trek Day 5 -up before daylight although I didn’t really sleep much due to a combination of the cold (ice inside the tent) and a headache.
A big effort was required to get dressed and put the boots on. No appetite but forced down some warm sweet tea and biscuits. We were walking before dawn and the summit was in sight.
Some two and a half hours later and here we were on the summit of Kilimanjaro, Uhuru Peak , Tanzania 5895m, the roof of Africa and the worlds highest free standing mountain, oh, and one of the worlds highest volcanos.
Congratulations all round, men hugging men with genuine affection. The wonder of mother earth there for all to see. Photorama!
After much back slapping and posing for photos, Eric had us regrouped and ready for the descent.
The route down was via Barafu Camp and Mweka Camp and we did it in a day (usually takes 2) which makes it sound easy. Let’s just say it wasn’t and my knees will probably never be the same, but how good was that first beer when we got back to the hotel.
It’s really hard to fully express my feelings about the mountain and the Tanzanian people at the end of it all, but it was an experience that I’ll never forget and recommend to anyone who will give me their ear.
PostScript.
A small snapshot of the global warming big picture is that the glaciers on the mountain have, according to the locals, noticeably receded in the last decade. In their opinion, most of the glaciers may be gone in the next decade.
