AMS and GHDs.

Upon signing up to do Kilimanjaro, my ears have definitely pricked up and it seems more than a handful of people within a 15 mile radius of where I am are also climbing it. I have been encouraging all my friends to sign up for this once in a lifetime experience and it’s incredible to see how extensive the Kili bug has become. Although most of the people I know of who are climbing Kilimanjaro are doing it for a range of different charities but there is one selfish reason why we are all really doing it. I, for one, am doing it to experience the views, the tribulations of the challenge which is going to see me pushing myself beyond my personal limit, to give myself something that I can honestly say I have never been more proud of myself for doing and to finally experience some of the wonders of the world. Then there are those who are doing it for nothing more than to show off and to be submersed with people rubbing soft oil on their egos. I have met enough people like this that are so naïve and clueless about what they’re signing up for I don’t think they even know where Kilimanjaro is.

According to UltimateKilimanjaro.com, 25,000 people set out to climb Kilimanjaro every year and it’s most commonly done through a tour operator. Everything is organised for you so all you have to do is get yourself prepared and attend, but that doesn’t mean it should take the fun out of knowing everything there is to possibly know about the trip. I’ve read every book and every article that has come my way, I have been scouring the internet for every source of information and read a few personal accounts of climbing Kilimanjaro, I’ve watched as many videos on YouTube that I can find and I’ll give them all a second going over, a third, a fourth and a fifth because reading and listening about Kilimanjaro is so fascinating and exciting for me. With all the information I’ve collected on Kilimanjaro it would definitely be my chosen subject on Mastermind.

I attended a charity evening held by a woman who is climbing Kilimanjaro in a matter of weeks and was stunned to hear she didn’t have the faintest idea about the trip or the mountain. She barely knew what charity she was fundraising for. It’s disappointing to know the beauty of Kilimanjaro and the opportunity to hike to the summit is being so undervalued by people who would rather be know as “so-and-so that climbed that mountain” as apposed to someone who spent months preparing for a rigorous trip up the highest freestanding mountain in the world which stands at 5,895 metres (or 5,896m as it reads in some articles) that’ll see you walking an average of 7 hours a day and an incredible 16 hours on the summit day over 7 days. There are no showers or bath tubs, there is no Tesco Express or Holiday Inn, no 6 inch stiletto heel-friendly footpaths, no electricity or plugs for your hair straighteners and no central heating for your tent. This woman, who otherwise is a relatively nice person, when asked the question “which route are you taking?” answered, after a shrug and a long sigh, that she didn’t know which route she was taking but that she was taking the easy route. The easy route? In my honest opinion, I really don’t think this woman she be allowed to enter Tanzania let alone climb up Kilimanjaro. I think it’s lovely that she wants to take two weeks out of her incredibly busy life to raise some money for charity but perhaps she would have been better raising the money by doing something she actually has a little bit of knowledge about.

She even had the audacity to give me advice which was, contrary to what I believe to be the best advise to do, “don’t read anything about it and don’t listen to what anybody else says about it.” I was a bit shocked by her negative and lacklustre response but I wondered if I had misheard or misunderstood. I questioned her puzzling piece of ‘advice’ but she was insistent that I don’t speak to anyone about the climb who has actually done the climb because “it’s all a load of rubbish”. It’s truly astonishing how someone could be that foolish and it’s very disturbing to think she could be so ignorant of what she is leading herself into. I dread to think how unprepared she is but I doubt the disappointment of having altitude sickness putting a stop to her trek would be as terrible for her as it would be for myself. The porters and guides that attend these trips with you are fantastic, which she will be pleased to know I’ve heard and read that this is the case, and are well aware of the symptoms of altitude sickness and all it’s severities.

There are three stages of acute mountain sickness which ranges from mild AMS, moderate AMS to Severe AMS. It’s very common to feel the effects of AMS as it’s all part of the acclimatization process; the main cause of altitude sickness is ascending at high altitude too quickly. The symptoms of mild AMS are headaches, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, loss of appetite, shortness of breath and disturbed sleep. Although this all sounds unpleasant, mild AMS subsidises as the body acclimatizes and as long as the symptoms are mild you can continue on. The signs of moderate AMS are similar but your coordination decreases, your headaches worsen and your nausea forces you to blow chunks.  If you suffer from moderate altitude sickness you are advised to spend a 24 hour resting period at a lower altitude to acclimatise otherwise it is said continuing with moderate AMS could quite possibly lead to death. The moderate stage of ataxia you could experience would reach the point where you couldn’t walk and you’d have to be rushed to lower altitude by stretcher immediately. When you are ascending a mountain of over 5000m, when the altitude sickness usually begins at 3,000m, is this information not worth knowing? Or is it all a load of rubbish?

When asked about the routes the hapless hostess would be taking, she made a comment that there were only three routes to the summit and there was an easy, a medium and a hard route. There are in fact six routes to the summit of Kilimanjaro; Marangu, Machame, Lemosho, Shira, Rongai and Umbwe. None of which you could categorise in such a rookie level of difficulty. If anything, the level of difficulty of all six routes would range from medium, high to very high. I will be taking the Machame route, also known as the ‘Whiskey’ route, which takes up to 7 days and is better suited for acclimatisation. The trek begins at Machame Gate which takes you through a lush rainforest, then heads towards the Shira Plateau before circling halfway around the mountain. We will be approaching the summit from the east which follows the Mweka trail. It is approximately 50 miles from gate to gate. The route chosen by Macmillan has been carefully selected for it’s incredible sights and it’s lengthier trek. A lot of thought goes into the preparation of these challenges and it’s all for your benefit. A little bit of research goes a long way.

I don’t see anything wrong with taking advice from someone who has actually completed the ascent and can tell you which socks are good to take, what flavour sauce sachets to take to spice up the bland flavour of the food, what method of training they found benefited them the most and what kind of backpack isn’t going to start pulling skin or irritating your back after the first 12 hours. I appreciate every piece of advice I have been given so far; I’m looking forward to hearing even more in the future and to share my experience and advice with other people when I complete the challenge. If you are sincerely interested in taking on such a big challenge you would think one would take an interest in the history of the location and you would know that the daily walk from your car to the staff room isn’t a substantial amount of training, unless you have parked your car 5 miles from the workplace and you work on top of a hill. Not in Norfolk...