Selecting an Outfitter

For many years Tanzania has required that all Kilimanjaro climbers use guides and porters. Hence, there is a thriving outfitter industry in Arusha and Moshi, the two towns closest to the mountain. To a lesser extent, there are also some Nairobi based outfitters.

Two sites that I have found useful in garnering reviews of these outfitters is the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forum (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/index.jspa) and the Trip Advisor site (http://www.tripadvisor.com/). Dave has been reading trip reviews on summitpost.org, another good site.

For the last two months or more I have been reading these sites, looking at the individual outfitter sites, and more recently, directly contacting the outfitters for quotes. The amount of information was becoming so overwhelming that I resorted to creating a spreadsheet to compile the data. The sheet now has over 200 rows!

There are two general dimensions to this process. The first is to select which of the roughly half dozen routes you wish to use. The second is to select an outfitter. I have been gathering information about both dimensions simultaneously.

Additionally, you can modify just about any itinerary offered, to best suit your climbing preferences. A common modification is to add an extra acclimitization day. A less common modification is to add an extra descent day - many of the itineraries involve summit day descents of over 7,000 feet on top of the 4,000 foot ascent to the summit! Finally, there is a third modification, if you have the budget and the time, which involves sleeping the night before your summit attempt on the crater rim (18,500 feet). If you have little experience with high altitudes, this is probably not reasonable, since you might get little sleep and feel lousy, but we have both slept at 18,500 feet or higher, so it was an option for us.

After talking with an informed and experienced acquaintance, we settled on the Rongai Route, which is not the prettiest or fastest, but which seems to fit our abilities and goals. The crater rim option was attractive (due to a short summit day), but significantly more expensive - we were told by one outfitter that a portable toilet is required of all parties who use the rim - a reasonable requirement for the environment, but not for our pocketbook. Another outfitter had a standard additional $500 charge for a night on the crater.

We have identified as many as 20 different outfitters, but have narrowed it down to three finalists. Sounds like a Presidential primary, doesn't it? I will let you know when we get our final plans in place.

Later: After getting a series of quotes, we settled on kessybrotherstours.com as our outfitter. They are one of the big budget outfitters in Moshi, and responded quickly and completely to our inquiries - this is the email address that worked for us: kessyvalency@yahoo.com. We will be paying $1550 per person for the following climb. We are planning on 10 - 20% tips on top of the basic charge, for a total for the two of us of about $3600. Ouch!

We have opted to not use their hotel and transportation arrangements, but rather, get ourselves to Moshi under our own power. We are using the Riverside bus that goes daily from Nairobi to Arusha and Moshi (http://www.riverside-shuttle.com/) - the trip is $40 one way, and reservations can be made online. I will let you know how long the trip actually lasts and what the condition of the roads are in a few days - I have heard that the road is pretty bad, so the advertised trip length of 7 hours may be optimistic. Later: The trip lasted about 10 hours, over rough and dusty roads. See my reviews under the name kris051 on the ThornTree forum of the Lonely Planet website for all the gory details.

We are staying at the A&A Hill Street Hotel in Moshi, for $15 for a double per night. The contact is sajjad_omar@hotmail.com. He has been quick and cordial in his responses. The hotel is recommended as clean and quiet on the Thorn Tree. We will spend three nights in Moshi before beginning our climb, to allow ourselves to be rested and unfrazzled.

This is our climbing itinerary:

Day 1 Rongai Gate - Cave 1 altitude gain = 2,640 feet
Day 2 Cave 1 - Cave 2 altitude gain = 1,980 feet
Day 3 Cave 2 - Kikelewa altitude gain = 1,250 feet
Day 4 Kikelewa - Mawenzi Tarn altitude gain = 2,390 feet
Day 5 Mawenzi Tarn - Kibo altitude gain = 1,320 feet
Day 6 Kibo - Summit - Kibo altitude gain = + 3,779 and -3,779 feet
Day 7 Kibo - Horombo altitude gain = -3,320 feet
Day 8 Horombo - Marangu Gate altitude gain = - 6,295 feet

The ascent should be steady but not outrageous. The descent should also be fine, except for the last day, but by then we will be more rested, with the additional day after the summit.

7 August

I have been slow to finish this particular entry because of mixed feelings about our choice of outfitter. We were very happy with Kessy Brothers, but after the climb we met and talked with folks from the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project, and learned that Kessy Brothers did not have a good record of fair payment to their porters.

Before choosing an outiftter, I would strongly recommend that you read the following websites very carefully: www.kiliporters.org and www.mountkilimanjaroguide.com.

The kiliporters website lists outfitters who have agreed to pay their porters fairly. The guide website gives a good overview of working conditions and issues surrounding the porters.

What we learned from our guide was that our porters were not going to be paid very much by the outfitter. As a result, we ended up tipping about 33%, rather than our initial planned 20%. We gave each porter $60, our waiter an additional $10, our tent carriers an additional $5 each, the cook $90, the assistant guide $100 and the guide $140. Since we had 11 porters, the total was $1,010 in tips. There was some question about two of the porters - they were not with us for the entire trip, but the guide insisted that they had done an equal amount of work. It is possible that we were scammed to some extent, and ended up paying for some porters who in fact were not part of our party. The whole thing left a sour taste in our mouths, but at the same time, it was a great trip and someone benefited from our largesse.

As for our itinerary, the ascent went without a hitch - one small adjustment of Simba Camp instead of Camp 1, but that was immaterial. The biggest problem was in the Summit Day. We were led to believe that we could decide whether or not to spend a second night at Kibo Hut. Not true. No one is allowed to spend more than one night at Kibo Hut. So we ended up, after a rest and a meal, descending another 2.5 hours to Horombo on Day 6. On Day 7 we went from Horombo to Mandara, and then on Day 8 we exited the park. It all turned out to be fine, but the conversations were difficult immediately after arriving back at Kibo, expecting that we could then collapse for the night before moving on, and realizing that we had more miles to go before we could sleep.

This is what our final climb looked like:

Day 1 Rongai Gate - Simba 3+ hours
Day 2 Simba - Cave 2 4 hours
Day 3 Cave 2 - Kikelewa 3 hours
Day 4 Kikelewa - Mawenzi Tarn 3+ hours
Day 5 Mawenzi Tarn - Kibo Hut 4.5 hours
Day 6 Kibo - Gilman's Point 4 hours
Gilman's Point - Uhuru 2 hours
Uhuru - Kibo Hut 3.5 hours
Kibo - Horombo 2.5 hours
Day 7 Horombo - Mandara 4 hours
DAy 8 Mandara - Marangu Gate 2 hours