The Duhon Family: January 2018

Per Dad:

In August, Jonathan Jones, Ryan McGrath and myself went to Tanzania to climb Mt Kilimanjaro. Kili sits at 19,341 feet elevation. It is definitely not an easy climb, but we all made it to the summit. It was a great trip that we all thoroughly enjoyed. JJ and I went a week early to explore the country and go on a few safaris before our climb.

We knew we were in Africa when we deboarded the plane and walked directly down onto the tarmac. The plane definitely looks different when you are standing on the ground right next to it. Our total travel time from leaving home to landing in Arusha, Tanzania was over 30 hours.

The first day we went on a safari to Tarangire National Park. It was a great experience, they drove us around in Land Cruisers that allow you to get really close to the animals. We saw tons of different animals and really enjoyed it. One thing that made the entire trip great was the kindness and sincerity we were treated with by the locals. The locals speak many languages, and one thing we learned immediately upon landing was that there are over 120 different ethnic tribes and languages. However they are all united under the Swahili language. Our trip started with an awesome safari guide who was so excited to have us there and was an excellent host. I was amazed at the courtesy and appreciation he showed us the entire trip. This was a theme repeated by everyone we encountered in Tanzania.

There were zebras everywhere.

The elephants let us get pretty close.

The cheetahs were really cool.

Mongoose

At the end of the day we went to The Tanganyika Wilderness Camp's Tloma Lodge location. It was an awesome lodge, it is an old banana and coffee plantation that is still maintained, and also used as a base for people to stay at while going on different safaris. It is located in the highlands of Ngorongoro, which is a huge crater that we explored the following day.

The food here was excellent.

This was a really cool map that showed the migrations during the dry and rainy seasons.

Our room, which was rustic but very nice.

The leaves aren't that color, that is all of the dust that is constantly everywhere. The baboons were fairly common on the road up the crater.

This is inside the crater, you can see the rim in the distance. Wildabeests are literally everywhere.

Those are cape buffalo in the distance.

We saw a lion which was really cool. He was just sitting there chilling. We discovered that Simba is Swahili for lion. All these years I thought Disney had been original in The Lion King. We also learned Pumbaa was Swahili for wart hog.

Female lion.

Jackal

Pumbaa

We stopped by a lake in the crater for lunch and to check out some hippos.

Hippos

Us and our safari guide, Arnold.

We did a day hike before we started our climb up Kili. We climbed for a few hours up Mt. Meru. We had to be escorted by a park ranger with a gun in case we were charged by cape buffalo.

Beginning the journey! The above pic is us with our Guide, Ayubu, the assistant guide Tito, and the cook Cellestine. We started at the Machame Gate. Elevation here was 5,400 feet and we hiked to the first camp, Machame Camp at 9,400 feet. The Machame route is a seven day route, the longest, to the summit.

Porters, these guys were amazing. They would break down camp after we left, hike and pass us along the trail, hurry and set camp back up, and be waiting for us when we got to camp. They were positive and enthusiastic the entire climb and really helped make the trip enjoyable.

I didn't get a pic of the gate at Machame camp. This is the location of camp the second day: Shira Cave Camp. After we got there we took a hike up to Shira II Camp then went back down to Shira Cave Camp. Shira Camp has an elevation of about 12,500 feet.

The temperatures on the mountain would change drastically. During the day short sleeves or a light long sleeve would be comfortable, and at night as soon as the sun went down temps would quickly drop to below freezing.

Above the clouds.

That's Uhuru peak in the distance.

Lava Tower

We hiked up to Lava Tower Camp and stopped and ate lunch. The elevation was over 15,180 here. After lunch we hiked down to Baranco Camp, which has an elevation of about 13,000 feet.

It began raining on our trip down from Lava Tower to Baranco Camp. This was the only time it rained, and I was thankful. The climb would have been much harder if it would have rained the whole time.

The start of day 4, the climb from Baranco to Karanga Camp.

Karanga Camp is basically the same altitude as Baranco camp, (about 100 feet higher). This helps with acclimatization to the altitude.

The narrow tent to the left of JJ was our private toilet tent. This tent was a GAME CHANGER! The public toilets were huts without doors and a hole in the ground. Very tough situations. Our porters took this tent and toilet with us to every camp.

The sun was very strong at this altitude.

Public bathroom situation.

On day 5 we reached Barafu Camp, the last camp before the summit. However we did not make camp here. We kept climbing and went higher to a place known as High Camp, which is about 16,500 feet. You have to have a special permit to camp here because they do not have public bathrooms. By camping here, we were able to get ahead of the crowd and also did not have to climb the Barafu Wall in freezing temps at night. We were able to go up it during the day and have about an hour and a half head start the next day when we began our climb to the summit.