The Beautiful Crater Camp
This year MEM Tours Africa hosted an unusual itinerary for Kilimanjaro which it must be said has very few untrammeled options left. Planning for the trip began around the idea of a Western Breach summit to which MEM MD Mohammed Shabay added the additional thought of approaching the summit via Rongai Route and the Northern Circuit.
The Northern Circuit is as the name suggests the northern quadrant of the series of trails that circumnavigate Kibo Crater. Ecologically and topographically the Northern Route is very different to the much more commonly used Southern Circuit. It is drier and more uniform in texture and consists mainly of undulating slopes falling slowly away from the ocher red peak of Kibo. The vegetation, as with the scenery, is much less dramatic, but is also softer on the eye and certainly easier on the body and mind.
Most interestingly though the trail once it has veered west of the main Rongai Route is narrow, little used and dotted with small campsites bereft of trash, clutter and most importantly crowds. Our group, consisting of friends from various parts of the world, spent the first five days more or less alone on a beautiful landscape moving slowly around towards the western edge of the crater. To the north the plains of Ambroseli and the Highlands of Mount Kenya were often visible, with the many shades and moods of Kibo a constant present on our left.
Things changed a little as we left Moir Camp on the western edge of the Northern Circuit and slipped into the much more popular Southern Circuit. At that point the usual jostle of porters and support crew robbed us of the isolation that days on the Northern Circuit had offered, but by the time we reached Lava Tower Camp we were anticipating the summit so the mood of relaxed enjoyment was evaporating anyway.
From Lava Tower a short but breathless climb to Arrow Glacier Camp is the first prep day for the Western Breach. The dimensions of the mountain are suddenly exaggerated with the breach itself plunging skyward at a crazy gradient. We had lost one of our members by then who had succumbed to altitude and headed down towards Shira. The remainder of the group ate with little appetite, rested with little sleep and otherwise mentally prepared for the grueling climb up the Western Breach from 4908m at Arrow Glacier to 5790m at Crater Camp.
The Breach itself turned out to be less of a challenge than expected, although still un unforgettable experienced characterized by seven hours of Pole-Pole, unending skree and the usual demoralizing spectacle of poorly equipped and overloaded porters climbing faster and more effectively. What was also unexpected was how high the trash issue of Kilimanjaro was creeping. The main culprit was discarded chemical body warmers which gives lie to the notion that it is mainly the porters to blame.
Equally distressing was the mountain of trash at Crater Camp. See The Fate of Crater Camp. Despite this it was with a superb sens eof achievement that we broached the lip of the crater and walked alongside the beautiful Furtwangler Glacier to the highest camp on the mountains.
From Crater Camp the summit is a breathless 200m scramble which at above 5800m is hard work. However the reward for our effort was a desolate Uhuru Peak with not another soul in sight. After a little bit of horse play and a celebratory swig of cognac we made our way down for the last and most unpleasant night of our ascent.
Crater Camp is beautiful, but it is windswept and hostile and freakishly cold at night. Sleep was elusive, breath even more so and midnight pee breaks cold but beautiful under a clear Southern Hemisphere starscape.
From Crater the route is down, and so it was. We arrived back in Moshi the next day having completed what is without doubt one of the most beautiful and untrammeled versions of the Kilimanjaro climb. The total number of days on the mountain was nine, but the same route can also be done over ten days. This is a longish climb but the advantage is a slow adjustment to altitude. All in all it was a magnificent experience and one that all of us would recommend.
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