In August of 2002 I headed off to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro.

 

I really wasn't interested in going up the Marangu "Coca Cola" route or even the Machame route because both had become so overcrowded. I was much more interested in climbing one of the tougher, less traveled routes on the west side of the mountain that would also enable me to scramble up the western breach. Going up the western breach gives you access to inner crater and crater camp. My goal was to climb the western breach, sleep at Crater Camp (18,600") and explore the remaining glaciers as well as the ash pit. The is the highest of all the technical treks I have planned on all seven continents.

After much research, I decided to go with on Mountain Madness, the company started by Scott Fischer. Mountain Madness partners locally with Tanzanian climbing company called African Environments--also co-founded by Fischer and his friend Wes Krause in 1987. After Fischer's death in 1996 on Everest, Wes Krause stayed on and has been running the company ever since.

Along with Berg Adventures, African Environments is one of the top two companies that guides the Shira Plateau and the Western Breach. They also camp in the crater, which enables a lot of time for exploring as well as a one-hour summit day because you are so close to the top of the mountain. This leaves you fresh on the summit and for the 10,000" descent to Mweka Camp.

I trained hard for this trip and everything went smoothly. I was quite a bit faster than the others in my group so I was assigned my own guide. This enabled me to have much more free time, so I was able to rock climb on Lava Tower, explore the caves, glaciers and ash pit high on the mountain.

After descending to the trail head, we stayed at the Moivara Coffee Plantation for a couple of days of rest. I used my second rest day to do a 1-day safari in the Terangire National Park before heading back to the US.

Note: Another good scoop I got from research was to fly KLM from the US to Kilimanjaro airport (via Amsterdam). The alternative is to fly into Kenya and suffer through a 6-hour bus ride and 2 border crossings.

   See the pictures of this trip

  See recommended reading for this trip

  See a gear list for this trip