Climbing Kilimanjaro
Climbing Kilimanjaro. Uhuru Trails by Abunda is a fresh team name for a long-established partnership between Abunda Safaris and one of our most experienced, dependable and licensed team outfitters on Kilimanjaro to provide discerning and distinctive Tanzanian mountain climbing experiences. This collaboration deserves special recognition under a renewed identity of its own.
Together with our Tanzanian family team with 30 years of experience in selecting, training, and equipping leading support teams of seasoned mountain guides, porters, and cooks, supervised from our local base camp office in Moshi, Uhuru Trails by Abunda offers seamless, private and highly personalized Kilimanjaro trekking expeditions.
We take pride in customizing your Mount Kilimanjaro trekking voyage to the particular needs and abilities of your group. This includes helping to choose the most suitable route, setting a comfortable pace, taking time to acclimatize, and being aware of your physical, emotional and mental needs at all times.We do not restrict you to group departure dates, fixed itineraries, or predetermined timetables. We customize each climb for an individual private group, whether you choose to trek solo, as a couple, with a multi-generation family, with friends, or as part of a charity group climb.
A Personalized and Innovative Kilimanjaro Climbing Experience
Climbing Kilimanjaro. As a pioneering approach to climbing Kilimanjaro, we uniquely provide every trekker with their own dedicated guide (1 guide:1 trekker. ratio) and a private porter to carry their personal equipment, no more than 15 kg (33 lbs). This does more than any other innovation to ensure the safety, enjoyment and success of each individual who attempts to climb Kilimanjaro under their auspices. The special camaraderie developed between a personal Uhuru Trails guide and our guest means that the climber can pace himself or herself comfortably, never afraid to fall behind or venture ahead.
It will become a treasured part of your special Africa mountain trekking experience to have grown close to a native Tanzanian, to have shared insights into lifestyles, customs and beliefs, to have identified flora and fauna and to have learned phrases and songs that lifted your spirits on the trek.
You can choose your own route and pace, timing your departure to coincide with your international flights or other travel arrangements in Africa or elsewhere.
Uhuru Trails by Abunda also includes an extra acclimatization day as standard in your climb itinerary, and we can build additional acclimatization days into your schedule or plan diversions to places of special interest, such as a Chagga village on the lower slopes, a spectacular waterfall near Marangu, or the peculiar forests of giant groundsel in the Karanga Valley.
We take your particular hobbies—such as botany, geology, or bird-watching—into account and actively design your trek to ensure an authentic wilderness experience, avoiding peak departure times and overcrowded trails whenever possible. With us, you have time to appreciate every aspect of your once-in-a-lifetime African mountain vacation and to embrace the challenge with enjoyment rather than grimly stoical determination.
The Best Times To Climb Mount Kilimanjaro
Climbing Kilimanjaro. One of the best times for a Tanzanian trek vacation on Mount Kilimanjaro is in the warm months of January and February when clear skies afford excellent views of superb scenery, especially from the upper slopes; though, expect some snowfall during this period. Choosing your time to climb is a very personal balancing act. You need to weigh your objectives against your personal fitness and climbing or trekking experience. You are more likely to gain the summit in warm, dry weather, since cold, rain, ice, snow and mud demand a lot from your body. They make tracks and paths slippery and deplete your energy levels. From mid-March to end of May, the long rainy season increases climbing hazards. Visibility is poor, but you have the slopes to yourselves. Lightning is every present and chancy.
It is colder from June to August but the driest period on the mountains which are also highly favorable trekking months, and perfect again in September, which is warm and dry too, and, not surprisingly, another very popular and busiest time as it meets up with the prime wildebeest migration season in Masai Mara and northern Serengeti. The school holiday season from June to August welcomes many families from North America and Europe for their epic Kili bonding hike with their teenage kids. A very good number of Abunda guests combine a Kili trek with a safari in East and Southern Africa and then concluding it on the beach islands of the Indian Ocean for R&R – rest and relaxation.
Best Time and Smart Strategies for Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro
Climbing Kilimanjaro. End of October and November is the start of the short rainy season when clear skies are the norm. At dawn and dusk. By end of December, the short rains dust off with sporadic showers through January onwards with clear mountainous vistas perfect for photography but humid and advantageously less colder than from June to August. One thoughtful way to avoid the crowds is to stagger your starting dates starting before the weekend starts, so that you are at different stages of the trek rather than going with the crowd on a weekend arrival.
Choosing an appropriate customized private trek route is a key strategy – hush-hush! Marangu being one of the busiest, quickest and the least cost option for the masses albeit with the lowest success summit rate. Fastest and cheapest does not result to victory at most times so avoid Marangu if your mind, heart and pockets are in sync. Also, think carefully about the phase of the moon.
Around full moon, night climbing is safer with better visibility and stunning photo opportunities, stark shadows delineating shining snowfields against gaunt rock faces and adding dramatic impact to the views. But it is also a more popular choice with heavier traffic so skip it if moonwalking is not a priority. We are alluding Michael Jackson here – RIP! The best time to climb Kilimanjaro is as soon as you can, before its ice cap melts and the fragile ecology of its upper slopes grinds with time.
TOP 10 REASONS ON WHY YOU SHOULD CLIMB KILIMANJARO
A Pioneering Approach To Guides
Uniquely, with Uhuru Trails by Abunda, every trekker has his or her own dedicated support guide and a special personal porter to carry up to 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of their personal belongings and equipment. This does more than any other innovation to ensure the safety, enjoyment and success of each individual who attempts to climb Kilimanjaro under their auspices.
This is a pioneering improvement on the usual ratio of other climb companies offering two or three guides to every five climbers. The advantages are manifold for those who have a 1:1 guide-climber ration. A personal guide becomes a devoted ally in the struggle to conquer the highest peak in Africa.
Treated with the respect due to his or her courage, hardihood and experience, your private personal guide will become your inspiration and your friend on the mountain. The special camaraderie developed between a host guide and his guest means that the climber can pace himself or herself comfortably, never afraid to fall behind or venture ahead.
It will become a treasured part of the satisfaction of this special African mountain climbing experience to have grown close to a native Tanzanian, to have shared insights into lifestyles, customs and beliefs, to have identified flora and fauna, and to have learned phrases and songs that lifted your spirits on the trek. This is most important on the grueling hike to the summit, when you should and not attempt to move too fast to keep up with the rest of the trekkers or the lead guide. Should you need to descend early, your own guide will stay close to you at all times.
Your Safety And Well-Being Is In Good Hands
Uhuru Trails by Abunda takes pride in customizing your Kilimanjaro trekking trip to the particular needs and abilities of your group. This includes helping to choose the most suitable route, setting a comfortable pace, taking time to acclimatize and to be aware of the physical and mental condition of their charges. Your team leader is a well-trained altitude responder guide, capable of dealing with any emergency.
Such personal skills are preferable to any amount of technological fixes on a climb where assistance is easily accessible, and the best cure for all ills is a rapid descent. Uhuru Trails by Abunda ensure that their experienced and trained altitude responder guides can recognize the potential danger of these symptoms and decide on appropriate action.
They are chosen for their leadership skills and ability to recognize the seriousness of a situation and impose their final judgment in cases of injury or altitude sickness where the only effective treatment is immediate descent. They could save your life. Your guide will treat severe symptoms in situ whilst informing Kilimanjaro Park Rangers and our base office in Moshi via the park’s or personal mobile phone network, or Ranger Post radio communication.
Emergency Evacuation and Safety Measures on Kilimanjaro
If evacuation is deemed necessary, escorting wounded sufferers on foot to a lower camp, where they are never left alone. But accompanied back to their base camp to await the rest of the team when they return. If the casualty is not mobile or if the terrain is difficult, porters accompanied by a responsible guide will use a wheeled stretcher as far as the nearest road access. Fast reaction mountain rescue vehicles driven by fully acclimatized staff who work daily on the mountain can reach considerable altitudes.
We carry the highest quality emergency oxygen equipment for medical emergencies, but we do not use it to help climbers ascend beyond their capabilities. Reserve it strictly as a last resort for very serious conditions and combine its use with immediate descent. We also carry pulse oximeters (small digital machines that fit over a finger) and use them when required, but we do not recommend relying on them because readings can be misleading under the special conditions of a Kilimanjaro summit attempt and across the wide range of climbers’ physical fitness.
Readings that would indicate perfect safety in an athlete may mask life-threatening conditions in a less fit and poorly acclimatized climber. Specialized equipment is carried by request for more challenging altitude conditions, such as the optional Kibo overnight at Crater Camp where hyperbaric oxygen can be given in Gamow Bags if immediate descent is delayed or too hazardous. But your best safety option is your personal altitude responder and support team, in touch by mobile phone with park emergency services, local base, hospital and remote medical advice and evacuation service.
Add on crater camp option available on most routes
For more adventurous souls who want to explore the remaining snowfields and glaciers in Kibo Crater, or stand on the edge of the bottomless central ash pit glazed with sulfur deposits and releasing occasional sulfur-scented steam, we can add an extra night to the Machame, Umbwe, Lemosho, and Shira routes to allow camping inside the crater itself.
First, you tackle the summit. Then, if you still have the desire and are sufficiently acclimatized, you descend the snow slopes into the crater, where you can stay overnight while sleeping well below Uhuru Peak.
The following morning, you have to re-climb the crater rim before descending to Mweka Camp.
This option is risky because you are spending a longer time at high altitude which should be avoided where possible. Favorably, you are not attempting the long descent on the same day as the summit, so you will be less exhausted. The polar wilderness crater environment provides an amazing climax to a Kilimanjaro climbing tour. Uhuru Trails by Abunda is an ecologically responsible outfitter. Please do not pollute the crater.
Private & fully customizable climbs
Uhuru Trails assist you to design your African mountain dream adventure. You are not restricted to group departure dates, set itineraries or predetermined timetables. Each Kilimanjaro highlands tour is organized for an individual private group. Your can choose your own route and pace, timing your departure to coincide with your air flights or with other African safari activities.
If you particularly wish to summit by moonlight, we can adjust your itinerary accordingly. We can add an extra day or two for acclimatization to your schedule or plan a diversion to visit a place of special interest, such as a Chagga village on the lower slopes, a spectacular waterfall near Marangu, or the peculiar forests of giant groundsel in the Karanga Valley.
Your particular hobbies, botany, geology or bird-watching can be taken into account and efforts will be made to assure an authentic wilderness experience, avoiding peak departure times and overcrowded trails wherever possible. Particularly fit, acclimatized and daring groups can attempt the more challenging, isolated Umbwe route up steep, narrow ridges between deep ravines. Or opt for the preferred Lemosho, Machame and Rongai routes respectively.
30 years of mountain experience
Uhuru Trails by Abunda is a fresh team name for a long-established partnership between Abunda Safaris and one of our most experienced, dependable and licensed team outfitters on Kilimanjaro to provide discerning and distinctive Tanzanian mountain climbing experiences. This collaboration deserves special recognition under a renewed identity of its own.
Together with our Tanzanian family team with 30 years of mountain experience in selecting, training and equipping leading support teams of seasoned mountain guides, porters and cooks, supervised from our local base camp office in Moshi, Uhuru Trails by Abunda offers seamless, independent and highly personalized Kilimanjaro trekking expeditions. We have good community links and are respected employers of expert and experienced local guides, porters and cooks to provide dependable and enthusiastic support on the mountain.
Many of them have lived and climbed in the area for the greater part of their lives and know what is most appropriate for safety and enjoyment on Africa’s highest peak. Our guides and mountain support crew’s knowledge is encyclopedic, enthusiasm boundless and their experience ensures your safety on this character-building Tanzanian highlands adventure.
For a climbing tour of Kilimanjaro, local guides are far superior to professional climbers imported from abroad. An assault on the shining mountain is not a technical climb, but calls for very special knowledge of the self-generated climate of this stand-alone extinct volcano. Imported celebrity talent may sound impressive, but their lack of weekly experience on Kilimanjaro itself can be dangerous.
In comparison, indigenous guides live and work in the area all year round, not just visiting occasionally for specific group treks. Therefore, they are intimately aware of the mountain in all its moods and familiar with local conditions as they develop.
They are also more knowledgeable about flora, fauna, geology and local history, having taken every opportunity to educate themselves on the subjects of importance in their work: subjects they have mastered not only by study, but by close personal acquaintance over a lifetime and passed on from generation to generation.
Local guides climb the mountain twice a month and regularly negotiate its trails with diverse groups of visitors, while visiting guides climb only a limited number of times each year—around two to three on average. Seasoned Tanzanian mountain guides have summited Mount Kilimanjaro hundreds of times, whereas incoming guides who need their passports stamped in and out of Tanzania may count only dozens of ascents, or even fewer.
By empowering Tanzanian staff, and training and trusting them, Uhuru Trails by Abunda promotes independence and entrepreneurship amongst local people, encouraging them to help themselves, improve their skills and pride themselves on their achievement in taking thousands of visitors on mountainous vacation in Tanzania safely to the top of the highest summit in Africa.
Extra Acclimatization Day Is Standard Experience On All Our Climbs
Uhuru Trails by Abunda is competitively priced, but still adds extra acclimatization days as standard on all routes. For example, it is possible to climb Kilimanjaro on the cheap using the five-day Marangu trek offered by endless tour operators along with its low success rate, with the very few summiting after only four trek days in which climbers have ascended over 4700 meters.
Not surprisingly, even fit, previously acclimatized trekkers often suffer terribly from altitude sickness by taking this fast-track option while most fail at it utterly.
Most responsible operators recommend spending at least six days on the Machame, Rongai, and Lemosho routes, but Uhuru Trails offers a fully acclimatized seven- or eight-day trek on Kilimanjaro itself, plus two nights in Moshi before and after your trek.
On our acclimatization day, climbers not only relish the challenge of hiking high and sleeping low but enjoy free time exploring the wilderness, familiarizing themselves with the unique flora and geology of the area, preparing to enjoy the taxing final ascent rather than enduring it as an ordeal.
We offer the same extra acclimatization day to hardy mountaineers who want to trek the Umbwe and Shira routes. Similarly, we schedule time on all routes for you to fully appreciate every aspect of this once-in-a-lifetime African mountain adventure and to enjoy the experience rather than face it with grimly stoical determination.
Well Maintained Equipment And Extra Comforts
Hilleberg four-season tents are warm, sturdy and secure, suitable for all weather conditions on a Tanzanian climbing trip. A roomy mess tent with tables and chairs and portable tented toilets are standard comforts. Personal attentions, such as bowls of hot water to wash hands, faces and feet, and hot water bottles for colder nights are all cheerfully provided, but you are expected to use your own towels.
Showers are not standard on Kili since it would be most inconvenient to strip butt naked in gale force winds and sub-zero temperatures, whilst the labor involved in carrying and heating extra water would be unreasonable; though, on special request for a convincible reason, we can deliver it with prior notice.
Uhuru Trails by Abunda will do their best to assure a comfortable climbing experience as possible. If, for instance, clients are unable to use sleeping bags or need more mountain comfort, we can supply hire tent beds or carry other special personal equipment with the use of an extra porter. Read more on demystifying safety equipment for Kilimanjaro.
Delicious Food To Sustain Mind, Body And Spirit
To keep up your energy to levels, maintain body fluids and boost morale, it is important to eat and drink well. Meals must be tasty, nourishing and fresh. Your Uhuru Trails cook knows the nourishment necessary at each stage of your African mountain tour, from meats, fruits and salads in high temperatures at lower altitudes, to hot porridge, soups, filling pastas and stews in cold, inhospitable campsites near the summit.
You may not really want to eat or drink, so it is this challenge tempting you with delicious, familiar dishes that add yet another dimension to your enriching Kilimanjaro trekking expedition with Abunda.
Comforting nursery food, such as toast, jam, honey, sausages and hot chocolate raise your spirits in the morning. Picnic lunches of sandwiches, fruits and eggs are easily carried. Snacks of biscuits or popcorn sustain you at tea-time until evening brings appetizing dishes like fish, mince meat, chicken, rice, pasta, fruits, vegetable relish cooked with spices offer fresh, aromatic culinary delights.
Combines Flawlessly With Any Other Safari In Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa Or Elsewhere
If your escapade is an adventure honeymoon trip, you could end with a relaxing barefoot beach holiday in Zanzibar to become accustomed to your new status after your Kilimanjaro climbing adventure. You could go game driving in the Serengeti, witnessing the annual Great Migration of millions of wildebeest, or visit the elephants of the Kenyan Amboseli plains, the rhinoceros in Ngorongoro Crater, the crocodiles of Katavi, or the chimpanzees of Gombe.
You could follow the ancient slave route, visit the Cradle of Mankind in Olduvai Gorge, go snorkeling with gloriously hued cichlids in Lake Tanganyika, botanize in God’s Garden on the Kitulo Plateau or simply indulge yourself in a luxurious colonial camp, rococo chateau or wilderness tree house.
Abunda founder family members are committed to sustainable eco-tourism in Africa, personally spending several months each year sampling their own tour venues to maintain standards. You can rely on us for a perfect Tanzania safari tour, enabling you to combine a trek on Kilimanjaro with any other African dream destination.
