Kilimanjaro

Has anyone ever climbed Kilimanjaro?

Yes, I think several people have now?...........~

haha... ok... has anyone on here climbed Kilimanjaro

My husband and I climbed Kilimanjaro for our honeymoon back in July - it was amazing!

Best thing by far I've done so far in my life (apart from marry my husband of course!)

Why the question?

T

That's a great honeymoon idea- glad to hear you had a great time! How long did it take you to complete it?

I'd love to climb Kilimanjaro sometime (along with so many other things, Inca trail, Great Wall of China etc), so just wanted to hear about people's experiences really. 

How much would a Kili expedition cost? I'd imagine you'd need loads of specialist gear so wouldn't expect it to be cheap. Sure would make an alternative honeymoon option.

It is fairly expensive, you can expect to pay in the region of £2000 each, we spent about £500 on the equipment as we choose to do the Rongai Route which is the route where you sleep in tents rather than huts.  It is totally worth the money though, I would highly recommend it.

Sounds brilliant, how long did it take you to do?

One of my mates got to climb Kilimanjaro on a school trip... wish we'd had trips like that.

Woah, what a trip for school - we went to the local bird sanctuary - that was about as exciting as it got!

Alton Towers was as far as we got- bit better than a bird sanctuary haha

We had a few Europe trips, but Kilimanjaro would have definitely topped them all!

Only ever got as far as Scotland with the school. Our cross-Channel trip to Belgium for an intended trip to the Waterloo battlefields was twice scuppered by a strike on the other side of the Channel. 

Sad times. I made it over to Belgium for one school trip- we stayed in the really nasty hostel with dirty beds and yellow pillows (not originally yellow...)- yeah was pretty nice....

er that sounds lovely

How long does it usually take to climb Kilimanjaro?

It's god to be around a 3-5 day trip at least hasn't it? Maybe longer to cope with the altitude.

It takes 5 days up and a day down!  That's on Rongi - there are other routes that take longer - so it depends on what you want!!!

Happy climbing!

That's really good- I always assumed it would have taken a lot longer to do. How much training did you do before hand?

Don't you have to do some acclimatisation first rather than just heading straight into a trek. I remeber watching a programme with Ben Fogle taking a load of novices up to some peak and it was the altitude that was causing many to drop out on medical grounds.