Trekking Kilimanjaro - Africa Natural Tours ( africanaturaltours.com )
Trekking Kilimanjaro: Africa Natural Tours
AFRICA
NATURAL TOURS
(The best tour company in Tanzania)
Specialized in: Mountain climbing,
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Kilimanjaro trekking information’s
Kilimanjaro
is the world’s highest free standing, snow-covered equatorial mountain. Located
in North-East of Tanzania, this magnificent beast can be seen from far into
Kenya and Amboseli National park. 75,000 people trek Kilimanjaro per year so it
is not the most remote mountain, neither is it the most arduous, but it is
certainly a test of one’s abilities with altitude sickness being the main
reason for trekkers not to summit. Although it has become a ‘must-do’ in on
most traveler’s lists and the experience slightly busy with other trekkers, we
still highly recommend it for anyone with a vague interest in mountaineering.
A Towering Life Force
Kilimanjaro represents a powerful life force for the local Chagga people and
all those who have made their lives around this mountain, providing rich
volcanic soils for agriculture and an endless source of pure spring waters.
Trekking Kilimanjaro
One of the most amazing aspects of the mountain in the present day is the
accessibility of its peak to trekkers with no mountain trekking equipment or
real previous experience of scaling such heights. Kilimanjaro is the highest
mountain that regular tourists can trek, although it remains a considerable
feat of human endurance!
The
breathable oxygen at the top is less than half the amount than is common at sea
level, and trekkers cover at least eighty kilometers on nothing but their own
two feet over the five days it takes to reach the top and return.
Preserving the Mountain
The number of trekkers has escalated to over a thousand a year during the last
century, quite a development since Hans Meyer made history as the first
European to scale the highest point of Kilimanjaro in 1889. The increasing
numbers each year have made it necessary for the National Park to insist that
all treks are pre-booked, and passes are no longer issued at the last minute at
the park gate.
Overall Fitness Required
Although it is possible to simply trek a route to the pinnacle of Kibo without
relying on professional trekking equipment, it remains a hard and serious
endeavor that requires a level of physical fitness, stamina and a realistic
awareness of the potentially damaging effects of high altitudes.
Many
tour operators request that clients consult a doctor before attempting to scale
the mountain, and have a physical check-up for overall fitness.
Phases of the trek; First Stage: Tropical Forest
With most of the old lowland forest now cultivated and settled, the first
experience of the mountain environment begins with the dense vegetation of
tropical montane forest between 1850m and around 2800m.
Cloud
condensation mainly gathers around the forest, so this area is usually damp or
drenched with rainfall, creating an intriguing mass of plant life and running
rivers between endemic tree species. The area of heath just beyond the tree
line also enjoys a relatively misty and damp environment as cloud clings around
the density of trees. This is covered with heather and shrubs such as Erica
Arborea and Stoebe Kilimandsharica, and a number of dramatic looking Proteas.
Open Moorland
From around 3,200m a wide expanse of moorland extends beyond the heath and the
cloud line, so that here the skies are generally clear, making the sunshine
intense during the days and the nights cool and clear.
The
trekking incline remains gentle, but thinning oxygen provides less fuel to
energise the muscles and can dramatically slow the pace of walking. Hardy endemic
species of Giant Groundsels (Senecio) and Lobelia (Deckenii) towering up to 4m
high thrive in this moorland zone and give the landscape a strangely primeval
atmosphere.
Alpine Desert, Sparse Vegetation
Even higher, beyond 4,000m, this sensation intensifies as the landscape
develops into a more bizarre alpine desert, with sandy loose earth and intense
weather conditions and temperature fluctuations so dramatic that barely any
plant species survive other than everlasting flowers, mosses and lichens. Only
the odd lichen survives beyond 5000m, after Kibo Huts and beyond the Saddle,
where the landscape is predominantly rock and ice fields. Here, trekkers
experience the final steep push to the summit.
Saddle to Summit
The easterly routes, Marangu, Mweka, Loitokitok and Rongai all converge west of
the saddle near Gillmans Point, between the peaks of Mawenzi and Kibo. Kibos
crater is roughly circular with an inner cone extending to 5,800m, (100m lower
than the summit at Uhuru Peak).
At
the center an inner crater with walls between 12 and 20 m high contains another
concentric minor cone, the center of which falls away into the 360m span of the
ash pit. This is the 120 meter deep central core of the volcano, and casts
sulphurous boiling smoke from its depths despite the frozen, snowy outskirts.
Tanzania Safaris Extensions
It is rare for people to go all the way to trek Kilimanjaro and not then
continue their time in Tanzania with a safari or even some beach time
at Zanzibar. Please follow the following links for more information
about Tanzania
For maltours.comore information
visit www.africanatur
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