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 Weather check: mostly clear skies, excellent visibility
with just a few surprising overcast & misty days. |
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Western Breach - KINAPA says ‘We are modifying our position’. Since the deaths of 3 climbers on January 4th of this year the Western Breach assault route to the summit of Kilimanjaro has been closed from 4871m to 5726m pending an investigation into the causes of the accident. In the week directly following the accident DAT’s Mountain Team Leader led a team to determine the cause and proposed to the head of Tanzania National Parks, Gerald Bigurube, that the claimed cause given in the early reports was erroneous, that the accident resulted from subsidence of a residual glacial deposit directly above the existing route and that therefore a modification to the route was needed in order to be able to safely reopen the route. In June, following five successive reconnaissance expeditions this route was finally agreed and KINAPA reported that they expected to have the new route opened by the end of July. Later in July however, Willy Shukuku, ex-NOLS, of Janam Wilderness Explorers in Kenya, who has been contracted to oversee the Breach re-opening operation visited the area again and subsequently gave his verdict to TANAPA that despite his earlier recommendations for the route’s imminent re-opening he now judges the proposed new route to be impassable for potentially inexperienced trekkers in the dry season because of the presence of dry ice. There is no vetting of applicants wishing to climb the route. |
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Care when booking your ascent and planning personal aspects of preparation and kit choice is always advised and it is a sore regret of ours how lightly many of the fellow climbers we encounter on the mountain have approached their own challenge. This week we were saddened to learn of three people who were killed while making their way to the summit with three different tour operators. The official version of these deaths is yet to be released however our own guides report the cause of one of these deaths as apparently being related to hypothermia. The body of a French lady who died during her night assault was collected by KINAPA’s rangers and returned to Barafu. The rangers there complained that she was not adequately dressed for the summit. The mountain is a potentially hostile environment and there is no safe substitute for an attentive and intelligent guide who has been trained thoroughly to monitor those in his charge. Last year saw 997 evacuations from the mountain however the number of deaths on Kilimanjaro is not known but is estimated to be some 20-30 each year. Aside from hypothermia a large proportion of these deaths will occur when a climber spends the night in Crater Camp at 5729m without first visiting the summit 166m higher. Climbing higher during the day than where you will sleep is essential at critical altitudes as the climber’s respiratory rate drops significantly during sleep, sometimes causing hypoxia if the climber hasn’t compensated for this air intake reduction by taking the body to a height where the lower barometric pressure will inform the body to adapt to lower oxygen levels. All guides can recite the mantra ‘climb-high-sleep-low’ and yet this essential practice is wholesale neglected by nearly all climb co-ordinators at the altitude where it is most critical.
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Our new dual layer jackets arrive. A new design of high altitude jacket has arrived and has already been field tested. The climber, a commercial airline pilot, was asked to critically assess the summit jacket and give constructive feedback for how to improve the prototype. Despite being experienced in outdoor pursuits he claimed to be completely at a loss as to how the design might be improved. He claims the jacket offers ‘instant warmth’ and despite its bulk packs down easily into its own compression sack. The jacket is synthetic and more resilient than the down jackets it replaces. It has been designed in a collaboration between our Mountain Team Leader and his Nepali equipment provider for his Himalayan climbs and complements our range of breathable Gore-tex waterproofs and high altitude down mitts. A limited number are already available for hire. |
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During the first week in August one of our climbing teams was delayed for two hours while an automatic transmission bus extricated itself from a culvert at the edge of the approach road to the Machame Gate. Our guides report that some 30 other vehicles were similarly delayed. The team was required to purchase a permit at the Machame Gate before backtracking 10km and driving onwards to the Umbwe Gate to commence their climb. As a consequence of these delays the team only began their ascent at 3:15pm, reaching their first camp by torchlight at 9:45pm. On the way they passed another group who was rushing in their anxiety to reach camp before nightfall. One of their party had already succumbed to dehydration. Fortuitously, one of our climbers was a doctor who was able to assist in ameliorating the casualty’s condition and he was able to continue with his climb. The episode highlights the urgent need for the authorities to capitulate to pressure to modernise their registration system. All that would be required to end the problem of queuing and delays would be for the National Parks to open a small kiosk at their headquarters in Arusha from which operators could purchase permits the day before an ascent |
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