Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Mt. Kilimanjaro in December

There is no website like the Whitney Portal Message Board that I can post for information, I have found helpful information on this site that allowed me to summit twice on Whitney (in 04 & 05)

I'm planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in December with friends in Kenya. For those of you who have summited Kili, what are the items that one must bring.

Please help me out.

Hi Malaika,

I have a pretty thorough gear list I send out to the clientele on our trips we guide there. I am in Chile right now but if you contact my office manager Norm he would be happy to email you a copy of it. This list would give you a good place to start in your planning.

Email him at info@sierramountaineering.com.

All the best,

Kurt

Which route? I went in December last year the machame route. Be prepared for a variety of conditions. We had rain,hail and snow. Always carry a fleece jacket,raingear,gloves and warm hat,not in your porters bag in your bag.

Many people were forced to turn around as they were hiking in shorts and had no warm clothes when it hailed for several hours! Make sure you have a insulation mat that is sufficient,there was 2-3 inches of ice on the ground that night.

This Christmas Patagonia !!!!

Robert brings up an excellent point. November and December are generally considered to be rather stormy months. If you can hold off your friends until later in December you stand a better chance for less stormy conditions. The "short rains" are usually Nov - Dec and the "long rains" are generally April - mid June.

Regardless of when you go though make sure you bring some good clothing layers. Also make sure you bring a good pair of boots with some insulation or at the very least have room enough so they don´t constrict your blood circulation when wearing a thick wool sock. Kili can sometimes get pretty chilly on summit day.

Not sure if this is too late but make sure you have a warm sleeping bag,it froze every night, even inside my tent my water was frozen solid. I would say the low was maybe 10 degress F some nights. I do not get cold easily. As far as boots I had a light weight montrail lowcut boot and my feet were fine.

I'm back from Kenya & Tanzania where I had a great time. We summited on Dec.25th with a blizards weather condition. Visibility was 0 at the top, there was also ice rain near the top with plenty of soft snow at lower section.
Thanks to all who posted, I had plenty of layers for the summit and remembered to bring rain gear with me at all times.
It rained everyday for the five days we were out there.

Thank you all once again.

malaika

Congrats on your summit of Kilimanjaro. A friend of mine leaves for Kili today. Zara just contacted her that there was an unusual amount of snow on the mountain at this time. She hadn't planned on bringing crampons originally...she will now! I will be climbing Kili this June. I am hoping that the Western Breach might re-open by that time...small chance but I am an optimist! Again congratulations!


Kurt

Thanks for the e-mail address for Norm. I will be e-mailing him to get the gear list for Kili. I have a good idea of what to bring but a double check couldn't hurt! Much appreciated.