In the military, you are taught about the importance of planning. Every single detail is considered and every eventuality is prepared for. No matter what happens, we will be able to react stress-free and complete the task at hand.
After first ascending Kilimanjaro, we began to prepare and plan the best strategy to make your Kilimanjaro climb a success. Success for us means that you manage to make it to the summit of Kilimanjaro, Uhuru Peak (5895m) and that you love the experience along the way.
Here are some the key things we have built into your climb to make it a success:
- Finding the best hotel for you
- High level support pre-climb
- Building the best campsite
- Minimising the likelihood of sickness
- Creating the best team to support your climb
- Creating the chance to celebrate your success
Finding the best hotel for you
After spending some time in Moshi and visiting different sites, we chose the AMEG Lodge for your climb. The hotel feels like a safari lodge and is only 5 minutes away from the centre of Moshi. It has large private rooms, a stunning garden and a large swimming pool. It is probably most well known for the Maribou Stalk that like to visit from time to time. The team are diligent and the chefs offer the perfect mix of Western and local food. Finally, the large bar area gives us the perfect space for our pre-climb briefs and social time in the evenings.
High level support pre-climb
I know how daunting it can be to take on a big challenge like Kilimanjaro. We also know lots of people choosing to visit Tanzania to summit Kilimanjaro, often haven’t been to Africa or climbed a big mountain before. We want to remove any unwanted stress and be by your side throughout the prep for your climb. This starts when you schedule a video call with either myself or Sam to find out more. We give you live advice and answer any of your questions. After booking, you receive a confirmation email, giving you access to our kit list, links to book your flights and all your booking information. We are incredibly thankful for trusting us with your climb and as a small gesture, we send you a postcard and Kilimanjaro T-shirt in the post. From the point of booking to the climb you have full access to email us and schedule calls with us to ask any questions. During this time we organise a call to walk through the kit list for your expedition.
One of our mottos is ‘Educated Minds’. Before any military deployment, we would learn as much about the area as possible. That’s why we created 8 weeks of build-up emails. Each email gets sent to you on a Sunday evening, educating you more and more about your climb. The idea is, that once you arrive, you feel comfortable and prepared. You might even know a few Swahili words!
Building the best campsite
Camping can be a difficult thing to do, especially for 8 days! There is a route on the mountain that offers huts to stay in. The only problem is we aren’t a huge fan of the altitude profile it offers. IE: it is easy to develop acute mountain sickness on this route. So camping it is.
We have heavily invested in making the Legend HQ Campsite as livable as possible. Large stand-up tents, cot beds and foam mattresses to sleep on are the starting point. Next, we bring up our very own toilets and showers for you to use. No need to wet wipe and use public toilets. Finally, we have a ‘runner’, yes a runner that leaves often a day ahead of the team to find us the best camping spot on the route!
Food is a huge part of the climbing experience, in our opinion, we have the best chefs on the mountain, who create three hot meals every day. Halfway through the climb we have a small team of porters bring up fresh food, so you can continue to enjoy good food throughout your climb.
Minimising the LIKELIHOOD of sickness
If I could name one of the main reasons people don’t reach Uhuru Peak (The Summit of Kilimanjaro). It is due to sickness. You have the traditional sickness from poor hygiene or food and then you have AMS (acute mountain sickness), aka Altitude sickness.
After a lot of research and trials, we have chosen the Lemosho route as our choice of route to optimise acclimatisation. The route gives you the chance to ascend slowly as well as have two nights of the climb-high, sleep-low style of climbing. This means we ascend to a high point and actually sleep lower than that. We don’t really like people increasing altitude by more than 500m when you are above 3000m in altitude. This route follows this principle perfectly and gives you multiple days between 3000-4000m.
As you read above in our camp set up we also bring up our own toilets and showers. This is to remove the chance of catching any illness in the public toilets and gives you the opportunity to have a warm shower when you reach the camps. Finally, we put handwashing stations by our mess tent.
Creating the best team to support your climb
We know how the team you climb with can make or break your expedition. They set the culture of the trip and are essential to the completion of the expedition. We are so lucky to have such a fantastic team. When you climb Kilimanjaro, you’ll more than likely climb with me (Jack) and then you’ll have a large local team representing Legend. This team includes porters, chefs and local guides. All with vast experience on the mountain. A lot of our team can’t speak a huge amount of English, so I have learnt Swahili allowing us to work together more effectively as a team. All of the extra things we do on the mountain mean we do need a bigger team. But that is a benefit for everyone. More job opportunities for the local team and a better experience for you. The team are all kitted out with Craghoppers|Legend Clothing and we are also working really hard to give them even more equipment and better long-term job opportunities.
Creating the chance to celebrate your success
Climbing Kilimanjaro is a HUGE achievement, so we want to celebrate your success. This starts when we get to the final gate. We collect your certificates and get them laminated, before heading to a small restaurant where the whole team (Over 40 of us), sit and have a team meal together! That evening we can celebrate over drinks as a team and say our goodbyes. When you return home we will either hand deliver or get a bespoke frame sent to you. The final piece of your story. We wanted you to have something to remember your achievement and there is nothing better than a framed picture of you on the summit!
As you can see, the above is just a small part of our planning for climbing Kilimanjaro. We want to help you create your own Legend.
If you’d like to know more or have questions, you can schedule a call with co-founders Jack and Sam by clicking here.
