If a company advertises a near 100% success rate for getting people to the summit of Kilimanjaro, should you believe it? This week I was contacted by a reader who had just got back home after an unsuccessful attempt to climb Kilimanjaro. The person had climbed with one of the top operators on the mountain, [...]
An 89-year-old woman from Phoenix, Arizona, has become the oldest to climb Africa's highest mountain. Anne Lorimor, a former university instructor, reached the summit earlier this month after a nine-day trek. Anne climbed for Creating Exciting Futures, her own charity that she founded to support disadvantaged youth. This is actually not the first time she's [...]
I've received several emails over the past few days from a Mr Christopher Loynd, telling us of a recent expedition he took with his children up Kilimanjaro. Nothing unusual in that, of course - except that in this case the children's ages were remarkable. For starters, one of them, Amara Loynd, was only eight years [...]
When should you book your flights for Kilimanjaro? I am prompted to write this after one of our climbers, Perry, gave me a piece of advice that I hadn’t come across before. He told me that he was going to wait a few days before booking his flight to Kilimanjaro as it is cheaper to [...]
Following the introduction of a wholesale ban on plastic bags in Tanzania, we've had a slew of emails from our climbers and others asking whether this rule is actually being enforced. The ban was due to take effect on 1 June. Almost a week later, and while the ban has indeed been introduced, it appears [...]
Tanzania gives go ahead to controversial scheme Over the past decade or so there has been one rumour about Kilimanjaro that has refused to go away. The rumour is that there will be a cable car being constructed near the Machame Route. It is a rumour that has been fuelled by successive directors of Kilimanjaro [...]
Penalties for those arriving in Tanzania with plastic bags We have been advised that Tanzania is, from the start of next month, banning plastic bags from entering the country. This does of course have huge ramifications for Kilimanjaro trekkers, many of whom use plastic bags to keep their clothes and other items separate in their [...]
Climbing Africa’s highest mountain unaided Can you carry your own bags up Kilimanjaro? By coincidence, over the past few weeks we’ve received several emails on a very similar subject. All of the correspondents want to climb Kilimanjaro. But none of them want all the fuss that goes with it. In other words, they want a [...]
Want that iconic shot of Kilimanjaro? Then visit Kenya's Amboseli National Park It’s all Toto’s fault. In their chart-topping hit from the 1980s, the lead singer of the Canadian dad-rock outfit crooned the line ‘Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti’. To those who know their geography, such a scenario is absurd and [...]
The best and worst campsites on Kilimanjaro By our reckoning there are around 25official campsites on Africa’s highest mountain, as well as several unofficial ones that are still used regularly by tour operators but which have yet to receive official sanction from the park authorities, KINAPA. Admittedly, the locations of the campsites on Kilimanjaro are [...]