A study has just come out confirming what many climbers already know: summiting mountains as high as Africa’s Mt. Kilimanjaro involves a high risk of acute mountain sickness, and steady acclimatization before the final ascent is the best guard against it.
The study appears in the current issue of High Altitude Medicine & Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and Muhimbili University College of Health Science (Tanzania) evaluated the incidence of AMS among trekkers of Africa’s highest peak by comparing the effects of three increasingly difficult and rapid ascent routes, the option of a single rest day during the climb, and use by a sub-group of climbers of prophylactic acetazolamide.
The authors reported a similar rate of AMS among climbers regardless of drug use, a finding most climbers already know anecdotally. More surprising is that a mid-climb rest day did not seem to have an affect on AMS, although we’d argue it has an affect on physical and mental stamina. The only way the researchers found to protect against AMS, given the risk of it is so high, is to acclimatize before final ascent, which is precisely why it’s so important to take things one day at a time.
In the report, the researchers found: At 2743
m 3% of the 177 climbers recruited at this altitude had AMS. Following headache, the commonest symptom reported on LLS sheets was fatigue (38%). At 4730m, sleep disturbance was the commonest symptom described (82%). 47% of the 189 climbers on all itineraries were AMS positive.
Climbing Kilimanjaro is no joke. Slow and steady definitely wins the race.
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Anyone who read Elizabeth Gilbert‘s travel memoir “Eat, Pray, Love” (and let’s face it, a lot of people did) knows the hunger for not just visiting a place, but experiencing it. Those with the luxury of time can actually carve out months at a time actually living in their dream destinations, but for those with only a week or two at their disposal, getting off the beaten path and finding what is real about a place is practically an oxymoron.
Which is why we at Embark were so excited to come across the travel piece, When ‘Real’ Is the Traveling Priority, in The New York Times this week. Because this is exactly the kind of travel we believe in–the kind that lets you try a place on and wear it for a while, test its pulse. Simply put, we are not in it for the T-shirt.
This is why we take people to more than just the mountain when we climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, and even on Kilimanjaro, we prefer the route less traveled (Lemosho), so that your path up what will arguably the best climb of your life will not be littered with tourist traffic. We’ve also taken several side trips to visit with the Masai, as seen here. We don’t just stare at and photograph the locals; we interact, share food and stories and laughter.
This is what real travel is all about.
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Some like to put it this way: The mountain decides. And because so little is known about the high-altitude illness that claims the most lives at high altitude, the legend lives on. Because HAPE (high-altitude pulmonary edema) can strike anyone, without warning, on any climb.
Kathleen, who at 55 had been training for eight months with her niece Kami to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro with Embark this past August, at first exhibited no symptoms that, without emergency treatment, she might have died up there. She was, quite simply, tired.
It really didn’t get tough until day three of the climb. Day one, they hiked from roughly 7,000 feet to 9,000, and again on day two they made it up to 11,000 feet. But on the third day, which involved another 2,000-foot climb in altitude, Kathleen, who had noticed exerting more effort with each passing day, was beginning to feel tired enough to wonder whether she’d summit:
When we got to 13,000 the third day, we got there in the afternoon, and I just felt tired. I didn’t have trouble breathing, I was just tired and glad to get there and relax. It felt like an effort to get to our tent. I remember talking to my niece in the mess tent and saying, “So what if I can’t make this?” At that point I was thinking it was more of a mental push, because I could see it getting progressively more difficult.
On day four, as they set out toward Lava Tower on the steepest part of the climb thus far, Kathleen began to really struggle. Steve, the assistant guide, noticed right away, and offered to carry her daypack. It couldn’t have been more than 10 pounds, and the fact that not having to carry it felt so good was a sign that Kathleen was really starting to struggle.
About an hour before reaching the tower, Kathleen was having to stop regularly. There was no scramble, but to Kathleen the grade felt steeper and steeper. And when they finally made it, all she could think of was lying down. But when she did, all she could do was cough, no matter what position she tried.
Later that night, after dinner and games, Kathleen went back to her tent to try again for quality sleep. But, she says:
It was the same thing. As soon as I laid down–just coughing, coughing. Terrible coughing. As the night wore on it got worse. I got up at 1 in the morning and felt really tired going 20 yards to the bathroom tent. I went back in and found that the only way to get relief was to lie on my stomach and prop myself up on my arms. I woke up a half hour later and my arms were killing me.
At 4 a.m., Kathleen had to get up and go to the bathroom again, and at that point she was so fatigued and worried about having bronchitis that she woke up Freddie, the head guide. What kept throwing everyone off the HAPE trail was that Kathleen was only experiencing fatigue and cough, without the very common nausea and headaches most people have to suffer through. But Freddie played it safe, put her on oxygen, and said they’d have to wait for dawn to head down.
At first light Kathleen had to say goodbye to her niece Kami and head down the mountain, with Freddie carrying her oxygen tank. It was tough to see the disappointment in Kami’s eyes, to know that Kami now had to push ahead on her own, but Kathleen was so exhausted she knew there was just no other way:
The assistant guide Steve came into my tent and packed for me. Kami of course is really sad that she has to go without me. And they gave me more oxygen. He measured our PO2 every day, and he would measure morning and night. It’s a measurement of how much oxygen your blood is carrying, so how much energy you have, and if everything is normal it’s 100 percent. Sometimes in the morning it would be 80, 84, just because you haven’t been moving yet. And that morning, mine was at 54. And when I came home my nephew said people are comatose at 50.
When she coughed up the color orange, Freddie knew for sure it was HAPE, but by this time they were almost back down to the emergency vehicle that would take them to Moshi.
“I’m not feeling bad about it now,” Kathleen says today, just a month after her return. “I had a great adventure.” Kathleen got to spend eight months preparing with her niece; got to travel to Africa; got to see the joy in Kami’s face when she came down from the summit. And she still gets to tell people she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. She just didn’t quite make it all the way.
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Over the weekend, travel writer Shawn Donley featured Embark Adventures in The Oregonian as the best way for Portlanders to find a local guide up Mt. Kilimanjaro. He has this to say of Embark founder Donovan Pacholl:
The Tanzanian government requires all climbs to be guided and supported. If you’re looking for a local option, I doubt you’ll find anyone in Oregon who knows Kilimanjaro as well as Donovan Pacholl. He spent several years living at the base of the mountain and in 2003 helped establish the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project. He now runs Embark Adventures (www.embarkadventures.com), which specializes in climbs up the beautiful Lemosho route.
Props also to Donley’s second local pick, Nicole Apelian’s Trackers International. She leads nature lovers on trips to Botswana’s Okavango Delta.
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At Embark we’re not shy about picking favorites–that’s how we decide where to go and what to do in the world–and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro sits high at the top of our list. But while in Tanzania, we consider foregoing a safari through the Serengeti truly lamentable. You just have to try to make the time for this unforgettable post-climb event.
The Serengeti National Park is Tanzania’s first and most famous park and a major portion of the entire Serengeti region, which makes up 14 percent of Tanzania’s land area and comprises not only the park but also the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Maswa Game Reserve, the Loliondo, Grumeti and Ikorongo Controlled Areas and the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.
More than six million hooves pound the legendary plains of the Serengeti, which is renowned for its wealth of leopard and lion. The vast reaches of the park also help the black rhino fight extinction and provide a protected breeding ground for the vulnerable cheetah. Every year, triggered by the rains, nearly two million wildebeest, 200,000 zebra, and 300,000 Thomson’s gazelle gather to undertake the long trek to new grazing lands.
At least 2,000 years before Europeans first explored what is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Maasai lived off this fertile, wild land that was eventually established as a protected park in 1951 and covers 5,700 square miles (14,763 square km) of some of the best grassland range in Africa. One of our favorite parts of the safari is spending time with Maasai–an honor few tourists have.
Serengeti’s ecosystem is also known as one of the oldest on earth, whose climate and vegetation have barely changed in the past million years. With plants that range from dry scrub and grasslands to towering baobabs, this park goes from burnt yellows in the hot, dry summers to a rainbow of flowerbeds that streak across green fields during the springtime rains.
You may have heard of the Big Five–lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and buffalo–and the Serengeti is one of the world’s only parks that boasts them all. Our guides are so passionate about their work they have been known to get a bit emotional if and when they are able to track down and show all five. But these impressive beasts aren’t the only wildlife to get excited about. Cheetahs, gazelles, hyenas, baboons, impalas, giraffes, and wild dogs populate the rugged terrain, not to mention more than 500 species of birds and 100 types of dung beetle, trees so beautiful and strange they’ll distract you from the animals, and a night sky so full of starlight you might not need your head lamp.
Check out our Serengeti Safari itinerary, our audio slideshow with John Leary on his recent trip, and details on the tents and lodges we prefer on what is arguably the greatest safari in the world.
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With fewer than 10 percent of climbers on the trail and potential to see a variety of wildlife on the first day through dense jungle, the Lemosho Route is Embark’s favorite and most frequent way to enter the mountain. At 72 km (almost 45 miles), the longer route allows for more thorough acclimatization, resulting in a higher success rate from start to finish.
Starting on the western edge of the mountain, Lemosho is considered the route of rich flora and wildlife, with great side treks across the Shira Plateau and up to Moir Hut – from which climbers encounter some of the mountain’s most dramatic views. The Lemosho Route is also the best approach to the Western Breach, and the best way for those who want to enjoy each step of the way with the greater certainty that they’ll make the summit.
After five days up the Lemosho Route, the Western Breach offers the only ascent up the Western side of Kilimanjaro, and is one of the most demanding and impressive non-technical climbs chosen only by mountaineering-style companies. The scrambles and exposures up parts of the breach make this the least-trafficked and most rewarding way up the mountain. While most mountaineers choose the Western Breach with competent guides like Embark, less than 5 percent of the total climbers on Kilimanjaro take this route.
An optional stop is Crater Camp, perched high at 18,000 feet and just an hour’s trek to the summit, so you don’t have to launch your bid at midnight. The final ascent can then be slow, with the most epic morning views. With time to explore the mountain’s glaciers, the Crater Camp Route creates the strongest sense of adventure, isolation and wilderness of all the ways up Kilimanjaro.
Known as the Whiskey Route, the popular Machame Route follows the old climbing adage, “climb high, sleep low,” combining the beauty of what might be the most stunning approach to Kilimanjaro’s summit with the speed of steeper paths and faster elevation gain. The summit is typically sunrise of day 6, with a steady descent into day 7, but a few do the climb in 5 or 6 days, depending on the group’s level of fitness.
At 67 km (almost 42 miles), the Machame Route is ideal for those who want to take the safest trip up the mountain in the shortest period of time while camping outdoors. Like Lemosho, the trail passes through five ecosystems, from dense forest and heather up through moorland, alpine desert, and finally, the glorious summit. Soak up breathtaking views of icecaps, forests, and the massive base of Africa’s highest giant.
Dubbed the “Coca-Cola” route, Marangu is considered the easiest, fastest (5 days), and most-trafficked way to the summit of Kilimanjaro. Those looking for serenity as they make their summit bid might find Marangu disappointing, as it can see hundreds of climbers at various stretches along the route.
Horombo Hut, at 3,720 meters, is more like a village and can fit 120 hikers, guides, and porters at a time. It is from the hut that most climbers make their summit bid at midnight, climbing eight hours to reach Uhuru Peak as the day breaks, only to turn around and head back down to Horombo before nightfall. With 14 hours of climbing in one day, Marangu is fast and easy until the end, when it turns into the most grueling ways to summit and descend.
The Rongai route approaches Kilimanjaro from the northeastern side of the mountain, along the border between Tanzania and Kenya. Because of the long drive down a difficult road, it sees relatively few groups and is for the climber who wants all quiet on the eastern front.
Experienced guides consider the Rongai route to be both easier and more scenic than the more-trafficked Marangu Trail, which it intersects on the final day. Most climbers descend Rongai via the Marangu route, totaling 65 km (roughly 40 miles). Some descend via Mweka. If you want an extra day on the mountain, which usually happens at camp Mawenzi Tarn, this is the route for you.
