Trip Reports

Kilimanjaro - Western Breach, September '19

Written by Leader Andy Chapman, September 2019

On Saturday 14 September our small team met up at Amsterdam airport boarding the KLM flight to Kilimanjaro International Airport. The long flight ended and we were taken to the refurbished Keys Hotel in Moshi at around midnight. Early the next morning we met up with our local guides, Clemence and Habit. Clemence and I had previously worked together on Kilimanjaro Western Breach.

We drove to Mt Meru and started our ascent of the mountain, stopping at the Miriakamba Hut for the first night.

After a good night's sleep we woke up to clear blue sky and continued our climb to the Saddle Hut. After some rest we climbed little Meru in about an hour. After good views and lots of photos we descended to the hut for a few hours sleep.

We left for Meru summit at 12.30am and were joined by Pete, a member of Rob's Kilimanjaro Umbwe route expedition. Straightforward walking found us at Rhino Point in about an hour, from there we went along the ridge with the odd scrambling move to the summit. We arrived at 6am in time to see a spectacular sunrise over and to the left of Kilimanjaro and a great view of the African plains and the Meru crater below. This was a good training exercise for our ascent of Kilimanjaro later in the trip. The unenviable task of getting out of bed half way through the night and walking hours by head torch in sometimes cold conditions (despite being only 300 miles south of the equator) was well worth it.

After a night at the hotel in Moshi we moved on to start our ascent of Kilimanjaro. The first day is through tropical rainforest and the camp is situated on a hillside deep in the forest. We slept well and the next day continued our ascent through the giant heather zone onto the ridge and to the Great Baranco Camp at 3,900m. We slept here for two nights.

I went with the local guides to check out the route of the Western Breach and to assess the suitability of the campsite after rumours that a rock fall had obliterated it. This proved to be unfounded. Very often gossip and rumours spread up and down the mountain but first hand assessment is always the best way of determining safety. The whole route looked devoid of snow, something that was quite different from my first visit here in August 1989. At that time we climbed the now disappeared Arrow Glacier with ice axes and crampons.

Back at the Baranco Camp we rested and prepared for the ascent the next day. In the morning, in a little over three hours, we climbed to Arrow Glacier Camp where we acclimatised and prepared ourselves for a midnight wake up call for our summit day.

As always most people wake up before the alarm call and we were away a few minutes after 1am. A slow but steady pace was maintained on this fantastically exciting scramble. It is always the coldest part of the day at 6am so when we eventually arrived at the crater rim we were glad to see the sun come up. An hour and a half later we were on the roof of Africa in near-perfect conditions. The Meru ascent and the staged Kilimanjaro ascent proved that the key to any successful high altitude expedition is proper acclimatisation.

The descent down via the Stella Point went relatively quickly and we spent 10.5 hours on the mountain that day and arrived at the Millennium Camp for a good feed and sleep.

We continued descending quickly the following day to the park gate where we thanked our large and loyal staff and journeyed to the hotel for a shower before boarding the evening flight back to the UK. A great trip with a keen, enthusiastic, efficient team of climbers,. Many thanks to Steve, Barry, Ben and Magda for making this trip a success.

Andrew Chapman September 2019.

« | Next report »

Jagged Globe Newsletter

We publish an email newsletter with trip reports and latest availability, plus features, competitions and general news of our climbing, trekking & skiing activities.

Categories
Archives
 
Follow Us:
1