What's in store for me on Mt. Kili

So, this is what I have found out about the hike so far…

It’s a 20 mile hike, and we will be going through five different climate changes.  It’s going to be 5 days up and 2 days down.  We will be taking an altitude sickness medication called ‘diamox’.  We will take this a week prior from leaving, and the week of the hike.  The biggest difference in hiking this mountain normally is that on this trip we are carrying the first paraplegic woman to the summit.

It is 3 degrees north of the equator, in Tanzania Africa.  Tanzania borders Kenya, which is near the South-East corner of the African continent.    The first day we will be going on an African safari.  We will be taking the Marangu Route.  On this route we start our ascent at an elevation of 5,905 feet and summit at 19,340 Feet.  It’s often called the Coca Cola Route because this is the only one where climbers can buy soft drinks and snacks at each stop on the way up.

The first few days are each around 5 hours of climbing, and each night we’ll reach a camp that has cabins full of bunk beds that can hold around 60 climbers in total. All the other routes require camping in tents, so these mountain huts make for a much different experience.  We are taking a longer route to acclimatize which will make a huge difference in our ability to make the summit on that final day, where we will be carrying Erica Davis for a total of 14 hours.

Statistics show that even though this is the easiest route it has the highest percentage of climbers who are unable to make the summit, and specifically it’s the 5-day climbers who really seem to struggle without that extra day to acclimatize.  We will be taking that extra day.

-Zackamanjaro