Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Kilimanjaro Guides Recommendation

I noticed on a string a while back allot of people have climbed up Kili. Could people please respond with guides they can recommend? Thanks.

I recommed Kurt Wedberg's Sierra Mountaineering. The site is:

http://www.sierramountaineering.com

I attended his two-day Snow Travel course in April and it was excellent. A friend went on his Kilimanjaro trip and had nothing but good things to say about it.

Yep Sierra Mountaineering is wonderful. CT

Went up the Western Breach with ThomsonTrek www.thomsontrek.com. Very professional. Age 56 made it to the summit. Great hike.

I went with REI a few years ago and had great fun. Friends of mine have gone with International Mountain Guides (IMG) and enjoyed their climb. It's a great adventure. Enjoy!!!

All guide services of Kilimanjaro are required to employ a local African guide and porters, so it's much cheaper to handle all the logistics yourself rather than having the 3k-4k $ overhead of a guide service. They are many detailed books to help you plan Kilimanjaro yourself. So Kili is one of the 7 summits you don't gain anything by paying a western guide service.

Jeff, I think mikeC makes some good points … if you happen to know the right people. But that's a pretty big if. I'm doing Kili in two weeks. I got invited by a Kenyan who lives here ... he has dual citizenship. It's very low budget because between he and his family (who live in Kenya and Tanzania), they put the adventure together with local porters and a guide with a good reputation. And instead of hotels, we (our group of four) are staying with his family. However, not everyone has the dumb luck to know a Kenyan-American who knows porters and guides and has already done Kili and Mt. Kenya. Over the years I have taken him on a few Sierra hikes which he appreciated … so I lucked out with this great opportunity. But it has still been a tremendous amount of planning and work for me – some of which I believe is what you pay for and get with a guide service like SMI. I hope I have covered all my bases and done everything right. I appreciate greatly the money savings and all the hard work of my Kenyan friend and his family. I've been in touch with Kurt from SMI by email and the message boards over the last few months, I've visited his office in Bishop, and I've heard nothing but good things about him. Over the next 20 years I plan to do another four of the seven summits (after Kili), and without a doubt, I definitely will be using SMI and paying for Kurt’s experience, his services, his emphasis on safety and returning alive to tell the story, and the comfort level of knowing that someone else is responsible for and has taken care of almost everything. In fact, he's even helped me some with my Kili trip per his free advice, knowing I'm not using his services for Kili. I believe he is simply a great guy in addition to having the qualifications. I believe you’ll get your money’s worth. On his Web site it says “The goal with our clientele is to make a friend.” That sounds like a very money-friendly-advertising-type thing to say, but in Kurt’s case, I’m learning that it really is a part of his company philosophy and who he is. Tony B.

Thanks Tony for the kind words. We all wish you safe travels and look forward to a good post about your adventures upon your return!

When you talk about "attitude", I had an interesting guide experience when I was doing the altitude research project at Whitney Portal about a month ago:

On the same day, I experienced two guide services.

Ann is a guide for SMI, and was leading a group of two, from via the Mountaineer's route. Ann and her two clients stopped, and were very helpful. Her attitude seemed to be that this was important work, that would help guides do their jobs better.

A second guide from another service was leading a group down, and when told about the research, just said something to the effect, "well my clients are tired, and we don't have time for this." His attitude seemed to be that we were idiots for slowing him down. Quite to my astonishment, one of his clients, after using the facilities, and getting a drink, walked BACK up to us, to be interviewed. Never saw the guide again.

Many americans just seem to think it will be more comfortable having a western guide I guess.I think it it kind of silly. I did a two week trip last Christmas with my OWN african guide,two porters and a cook for about the price of the Kilimanjaro trip posted above.

You are either going to stay in basic facilities on the Marangu route or tents on all the other routes.I was in camp with folks on the expensive tours. The difference they had better chairs and a seperate dining tent,wow!.If that is worth an extra $1000 to you, go for it.But it is likely that you will share guides with a group, with all the associated group dynamics.

I went with http://www.zaratravel.com/ . If anyone is interested I would also recommend my guide Johnny.

Thanks to everyone's input. I am not going until 2008 but since my profession is buyer/planner I like to plan way ahead. Also my only international experience is traveling back and forth to Taiwan. Between now and next year I am doing several training hikes on Mt. Whitney and Mt Shasta. Is this sufficient training? Also might try Rainier. Thnaks everyone...

I just returned from Africa this week and climbed with Kiliwarriors (www.go-kili.com). I was on my honeymoon, so we opted NOT to rough it, and these guys were the best on the mountain. Great guides, great equipment, hot showers on the mountain, the liveliest group of porters you've ever seen, you name it. I prefer local guides that climb the mountain all year round as opposed to an [expensive] Western guide that leads a climb once or twice a year.

The Western Breach is still closed with no plans to re-open, so the alternate route is the Lemosho-Crater route: instead of going up the breach, you skirt around the mountain at about the 14,000 foot level and then ascend to the summit via Stella Point. The benefit of this nine-day route is that you've acclimatized enough to spend a night in the crater at 18,700 feet - cold, but really cool. Plus, you avoid the really long summit day that you'd have to endure on any other route (wake up at midnight, summit in the morning, then descend to 10,000 feet).

Kiliwarriors is in the same "top" bucket as Thomson Trek, Mountain Madness, Alpine Ascents, etc., but isn't as costly. They're the only company that packs a hyperbaric chamber (gamow bag) when they stay at Crater Camp. The porters sing great songs when you come into camp and by the middle of the trip you'll be singing and dancing with them.

I'm obviously don't have a full set of data here because Kiliwarriors is the only company I've gone with, but I will say that when we were on the mountain and could see the other groups, including solid American and UK companies, we were very happy we went with Kiliwarriors. I would highly recommend them.

No doubt there are excellent local guides.

Given the choice, however, I'd prefer go with someone I know. Love craps in Vegas. All I can lose is money. On a big mountain, on the other hand, I'd really rather stack the deck. Enough risk for me, just from being up high.

I'd call Kurt.

T

I've never used a guide in climbing a mountain, so cannot speak from personal experience. However, the activity that we are talking about is mountaineering. And although Kili is apparently simply walking, it does involve high altitude, cold, exposure to foreign bugs. People die up there. (estimated 25 porters/yr).

If everything goes well, there is no problem. If things start to go wrong, very experienced mountaineers can take care of themselves (by definition). But if things start to go wrong, less experienced people are quickly over their heads. You don't get help on the cell phone, or by calling 911. This is where the experienced guide would seem to offer the real value.

The guide would, it seems to me, be in a position to deal with a problem that he's probably encountered before, or similar things before.

I can't begin to imagine the potential problems with an international expedition, but and experienced guide can probably anticipate and prevent a lot of problems.

By the way, ran across this article:
------------------------
Carrying a Heavy Load
No worries? Not quite. Kilimanjaro's booming climbing industry is resting precariously on the shoulders of its local porters. Some are paying a severe price.

Last year, more than 25,000 trekkers traveled to 19,340-foot (5,895-meter) Mount Kilimanjaro hoping to bag the least technical of the world's Seven Summits. On average, each climber uses two to three porters—many of whom are Chagga tribesmen who make their home at the base of the mountain. The porters make the visitors' hike more comfortable by hauling 40-pound (18-kilogram) loads of gear and provisions, and the money they receive—less than eight dollars (U.S.) per day—makes for a comparatively good wage in cash-strapped Tanzania.

But the same features that make Kilimanjaro extremely popular with adventurous trekkers—easy access to a high-altitude summit in a cheap, undeveloped country—create a perilous and sometimes deadly situation for its porters. While some well-established guiding companies have committed themselves to providing porters with proper gear and fair salaries, some local tour operators regularly send their porters to dangerous altitudes under heavy loads without proper clothing or equipment.

The deaths of three porters on Kilimanjaro in September of last year received international news coverage, eliciting concern from human rights groups and within the global climbing community. But according to those who work on the mountain, porter deaths are common and continue to be under-reported as Kilimanjaro's popularity soars (12,000 climbers came to Kilimajaro in 1995; 25,000 in 2002).

Full story: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0310/q_n_a.html

I am not sure what folks are implying.Because my guide was local and cheaper than the fancy companies mentioned that it somehow is not as safe or recommended?. My guide has done Kilimanjaro 105 times. How many western guides can say that?

Regardless of which route you take you will be in a tent, you will be crapping in a hole.Eating strange food,no matter how much you pay.It is not going to be a fancy trip.

I was able to talk with folks who used other companies every night in camp.I asked a lot of questions as I was curious. Really not a lot of difference there,in fact many of the folks with one of the fancy companies were totally unprepared for the 3 hour hail storm on the 3rd day,were wearing the wrong clothes(shorts!) and were not carrying warm stuff.If there guides were good they would have told them otherwise? my guide knew what I was carrying,(of course I had warm clothes),and my porters were right there with my bag while most others waited.Half these folks turned around that day or the next,I bet that it ruined their trip.

I was also happy to have only myself to set the pace and decide what time to start.Not depending on a group consensus. the western companies had groups of 8-10 each.

I will also use a local guide for the Himalayas.I can't see the reason to spend twice as much. RR

Well, you have no way of knowing how many times your guide had climbed up Kilimanjaro...you may know how many times he claimed to have done it, but that doesn't mean it's the truth.

However, it does sound like you had a great experience and didn't waste a lot of money to do so. If you can get basically the same service for half the price, then of course that's the way to go.

But I agree that it wouldn't be good to just pick a local guide at random if you were already familiar with a good one in the USA. A recommendation from a trusted source is the way to go in either case.

Robert, I don't know what others may be implying, if anything, but all I'm meaning to say is that experienced mountaineers know how to take care of themselves.

People who are not, often do not, especially when things start to go wrong.

An example, you mention that you could decide for yourself what time to get started in the day.
On what basis? You are a mountaineer, and can make such decisions, someone who is not can too, and will probably make the wrong decisions.

Your argument can basically be boiled down to, as you state your intentions for the Himalaya,
"nobody needs a guide for anything", and that may be true for you and other hardy mountaineers, but certainly not for everyone.

You also certainly make a good case that some guides are better than others, and I think that was the whole point of the original question in this thread.

"...and the money they receive—less than eight dollars (U.S.) per day—makes for a comparatively good wage..."

Glad to see that someone finally qualified the statement about wages that the porters receive. I can live comfortably (we're not talking mud huts) in Thailand on about $10/day, slightly more in the mountains of Nepal.

RR, we finally agree on something. I also prefer the independence and control that I have when I'm by myself and have hired the guide and porter(s) myself. But, I've done it so many times that there are no complications (other than weather) any more.

If it were my first outing, I'd go on a guided program. Having someone else responsible for handling any complications takes a load off and you can use it as a learning process for heading out on your own.

Edit (after reading the whole article): Good, common sense advice. If you are hiring your own porters, you should make sure that they are insured, or you're willing to cover the cost of any injuries they sustain. (It's dirt cheap in Nepal, so there's no excuse for not having it.) Also liked the comment about handing the tips to the porters themselves...that's the way I do it. (It's nice to see the smiles on their faces when they open the envelope!) And, make sure that if you hire them out of an agency, that they're not be forced to turn part of their tips over to the agency. (I had this brought to my attention on one trip, so I just told everyone to pretend that I had "stiffed" them.)

I did not mean that I was my own guide.I had a guide and we consulted about each hike in the evening and before the next day decided a time to start. The porters were insured and I did go through an established company,in fact the company that puts more people up the mountain every year than any other (Zara).

But as I am quite strong, I did not have to leave early for slower members of a group, or pay any attention to how members of my group are doing.The western tour companies usually have a minimum of 8 or so so its all about the group.

I have no reson to believe my guide was lying,do you? Western people are more honest? Honestly I hope that comment has no racial tones to it. I like the fact that my guide is a local African.
Regarding money I did tip well,the workers deserve the money.250 dollars for 5 days for the guide and two porters,+ 1 cook/porter.

I did not say I'm going without a guide in the Hymalayas,but I am surely going with a local company. There the western companies charge three times as much.

I wasn't implying that your guide may have not told you the truth because of any ethnic background...you just stated so matter of factly how many times he had gone up the mountain when you had no way of knowing. That was my only point and probably not worth making, because I basically agreed with your post about saving some money and still getting great service being a great way to go.