Day 3 - Trek Day 1
Wednesday, September 9
Lemosho Trailhead —> Forest Camp 4.5 miles
6,890 ft. —> 9,150 ft. 2,260 ft. up!
2:00pm —> 5:00pm 3 hours
How fresh and eager we all look!
The day began with 6:15 coffee at the tent and 7:00 breakfast in the dining tent. Then more last minute organizing and paperwork, as well as the first recording of our pulse oxygen and heart rate (these will be taken twice daily throughout the climb). Then the sorting of the bags we’re taking and the bags we’re leaving behind, and the loading of the vehicles. 8:45 wheels up!
Then a 3+ hour drive to our trailhead - the Lemosho Gate. There were other groups arriving as well, so there was some jockeying for space as we met up with the porters who were waiting for us to finalize the packing of all our gear the bags they would use to carry our stuff up the mountain. For a group of 12 clients, we had a team of 78 support staff (5 guides, 4 chefs, 69 porters)! Included in that number was a personal porter for each of us: the one who would carry our duffel & sleeping bag/pad each day, as well as set up our tent and place our bags in our tent so they’d be waiting for us when we arrived at camp each day. They also helped us put on and take off our boots/gaiters and cleaned our boots for us each day. My personal porter is Frank and Mike’s is Christopher. We spent 1½ hours with the porters getting organized, having lunch, using a real bathroom one last time, and taking group photos by the sign before we headed up the trail.
We saw Colobus Monkey’s and Tree Hyrox as we hiked.
The trail was UP immediately and our leader lead a very slow pace. It was quite jungley and the trail was a dry, red dirt. Porters would frequently pass us, and we stopped a couple times to rest and to shed layers.
We arrived at camp at 5:00 - a smallish camp ground amid trees FILLED with tents, ours and other groups as well. Our personal porters were waiting for us and Frank came right over and took my pack from me. The he showed us to our tent and helped us get settled. 5:30 was tea and popcorn in the dining tent (when we take our pulse ox/hr), then back to our tent to get organized for the evening and the morning before dinner at 7:00.
During dinner Bona and Juma (our main guides) checked in with us on how we were all doing and gave us a briefing for tomorrow - what time coffee at the tent would be, then breakfast in the dining tent, and then departure. By the time I finished the evening routine (teeth brushing etc.) and writing in my journal it was lights out at 9:15. What a full day we had!
A word about our route up the mountain: The Northern Circuit
There are 7 official established routes up Kilimanjaro. Most of them take 6-7 days to reach the summit; however our route, the Northern Circuit, is the longest, taking 8 or 9 days, which is why we chose this trip. The longer hike gives more time for acclimatizing to the altitude. And this trip in particular summits differently than most others. Most groups camp at 15,000 ft. the night before summiting, requiring them to begin their summit trek at midnight and hike for 6 or 7 hours (4,000 ft.) in the dark to reach the summit for sunrise.
Our trek, camps at a high camp in the crater at 18,800 ft., so that our summit push is only a 2 hour hike. This was really important to us because once we summit, we descend 10,000 ft. that same day! Yikes!
We also preferred the Northern Circuit because it is the least traveled, and most private of the routes. After our second day, we rarely saw anyone else on the trail and camps had only one or two other groups at them.
Here’s a small map of our camps and our route:
Mike was able to capture our hike on AllTrails each day. Here is today’s hike: