Useful items to take with you up Kilimanjaro

Equipment you may find useful on Kilimanjaro

Earplugs Some porters on Kilimanjaro have stereos and mobile phones, and they love advertising this fact by playing the former and speaking into the latter extremely loudly at campsites. A set of earplugs will reduce this disturbance.

Gaiters Gaiters are useful on Kilimanjaro’s dusty Saddle - the desert area between Mawenzi and Kibo peaks. Indeed, more than one trekker has written in to say that gaiters are essential. However, I’ve also met more than one trekker who can’t see the point. It’s a matter of preference.

Face mask Again, I never would have thought of it but two people have written in to say they were bothered by the dust on the Saddle and would have worn some sort of surgical mask on Kilimanjaro if they’d had one. Don’t worry if you don’t have one, however: we’ve never seen anybody actually wearing one on the mountain.

Soap Though you won’t get through much of it on Kilimanjaro and your trekking agency should provide some for you.

Plastic bags Useful for segregating your wet clothes from the rest of your kit in your rucksack on Kilimanjaro.

Aluminium sheet blanket An aluminium sheet blanket provides extra comfort if your sleeping bag on Kilimanjaro isn’t as warm as you thought.

Sandals/flip-flops A change of footwear on Kilimanjaro is useful in the evenings at camp , but make sure they are big enough to fit round a thick pair of socks.

Candles By all means bring candles with you to Kilimanjaro, but don’t use them in the tent and keep them away from everybody else’s tent too.

Bootlaces/string

Clothes pegs Clothes pegs on Kilimanjaro are very useful for attaching wet clothes to the back of your rucksack to allow them to dry in the sun while you walk; a reader wrote in to recommend binder clips (also known as bulldog or office clips) as a smaller, stronger alternative.

Penknife Always useful, if only for opening beer bottles at the post-trek party.

Matches As with the penknife, always useful, as any boy scout will tell you.

Sewing kit For repairs on the trail.

Trowel If you envisage needing to defecate along the trail at places other than the designated toilet huts, this will help to bury the evidence and keep Kilimanjaro looking pristine.

Insulating tape Also for repairs - of shoes, rucksacks, tents etc, and as a last resort for mending holes in clothes if you have forgotten your sewing kit, or are incapable of using it.

She-wee AKA the Miss Piss, this is for ladies who want to wee without the bother of removing layers or getting out of the tent at night. According to some, the ‘female urinal’ is cheaper and better. Blokes, by the way, usually make do with an empty mineral water bottle.

Watch Preferably cheap and luminous for night-time walking.

Compass Not essential, but useful when combined with …

Map See our Kilimanjaro guidebook for a list of our preferred maps of Kilimanjaro; again a map is not essential, but will, in combination with a compass, help you to determine where you are on Kilimanjaro, and where you’re going.

Whistle It’s difficult to get lost on Kilimanjaro but if you’re taking an unusual route - on the northern side of the mountain, for example, or around Mawenzi - a whistle may be useful to help people locate which ravine you’ve fallen into.

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