Earlier this month, on the morning of the 16 March, 2018, Montana Kenney managed to walk from the park gates to the very summit of Africa's Highest Mountain. In doing so, she became the youngest girl ever to climb to the top of Kilimanjaro. Miss Kenney, from Austin, Texas, climbed with her mum. They planned [...]
It's been a busy time on Kilimanjaro. This morning Danish athlete Kristina Schou Madsen contacted us to point out that she has just smashed the record for the fastest climb-and-descent of Kilimanjaro by a woman. Her time of 6 hours, 52 minutes and 54 seconds using the Mweka Route (which is usually used as a descent-only route by [...]
As most of you will know, there are six main routes leading up to the summit of Kilimanjaro (plus one route that is for descent purposes only). The question is: which one is the most popular? It's an important question, of course, because few people want to trek on an over-crowded route. And indeed, on [...]
Once again I am very grateful to the Kilimanjaro National Park Authorities, KINAPA, for supplying the most up-to-date statistics available for which nationalities climb Africa's highest mountain the most. I’m not sure how reliable they are, but they are the best we can get; plus, to be fair, on this matter at least they do [...]
There's no doubt about it: getting to the top of Kilimanjaro is largely a matter of luck. After all, the main reason why people fail to get to the top is due to altitude sickness, and whether you get this or not is largely a matter of luck. Nevertheless, if you're going to climb Kilimanjaro, you [...]
Just in case you missed this one, earlier this month several UK newspapers reported the story of a woman who had agreed to accompany her daughter on a climb up Kilimanjaro - only she thought it was in Wales. Apparently, Nikki Barnett, from Nuneaton, had always had trouble pronouncing Welsh place names and so assumed that, because she [...]
It's finally been officially confirmed that Dr Fred Distelhorst, a retired orthodontist from Vail, Colorado, has become, at 88, the oldest person ever to climb Kilimanjaro. Dr Distelhorst climbed with his grand-daughter, Ellen Edgerton, who was already in Tanzania volunteering for a charity project. The duo took six days to climb Africa's highest mountain, finally reaching the [...]
It is almost impossible to ascertain with any degree of accuracy the number of people who die on Kilimanjaro each year. The one organisation that knows the exact body count, KINAPA, the park authorities, doesn’t want to release this figure, for fear that it would impact negatively on the number of people who climb the [...]
Mark Lloyd, 33, an ex-soldier from Pontypridd in South Wales, was today jailed for 20 weeks for benefit fraud. Mr Lloyd claimed that he was unable to walk more than 50m in order to claim thousands of pounds in disability benefits - yet during this time he then spent on activities such as climbing Kilimanjaro and [...]
In amongst all the fun and enjoyment that happens when climbing Kilimanjaro, it's easy to forget how dangerous the mountain can be. Because Africa's highest mountain definitely has a dark side, with around half a dozen people dying each year in their attempts to conquer it. This was brought home to me recently when I came [...]