Esteemed friends at 7Summits,
You necessarily invite comment from us:
"I assume this is a speedclimber, something that is not approved of by the park authorities"This is a slightly misleading, and perhaps poorly informed, remark. Team Kilimanjaro met with several officials and the acting director general of Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) recently. Moirana, speaking on behalf of TANAPA expressed considerable willingness to work towards a policy revision that will give official sanction to speedclimbs on Kilimanjaro, agreeing that adherence to their present policies which do not equip them to assist towards activities defined as 'adventure tourism' meant they were "losing an immense opportunity". You can hear this for yourself here:
Tanapa-director-speedclimbs-movie.
"and a really bad example for Kili climbers"This is disingenuous in the extreme. You'll of course know that the most usual venue for deaths and the incidence of HAPE/HACE is Crater Camp at 5729m. This is because a bizarre and dangerous convention has arisen on Kilimanjaro's Western Breach route of siting the final camp at this location
prior to the assault. Obviously Team Kilimanjaro do not use this method but regrettably most operators do.
[For non-mountaineers reading this, an essential safety measure when acclimatising is to 'climb high sleep low'. This is because during daytime exertions when respiration is increased there is a sufficiently high concentration of CO2 produced for the chemo-receptors to register the need to inspire the rarefied air and to send this information to the medulla oblongata, but when respiratory drive is decreased - ie. while sleeping at Crater Camp - insufficient blood CO2 concentrations are produced and the MedOb receives too infrequent instructions to breathe. Now because the person is still in the process of acclimatising the concentration of haemoglobin in the person's blood is not yet enough to derive and carry adequate amounts of O2, whereas there would have been had the climber exposed him/herself to lower barometric pressures at higher altitudes earlier in the day and thereby given the body 'warning' of what was required to be adapted to. The barometric pressure at Crater Camp will range from about 48% to 53% of what we are used to at sea level, depending on weather, and since the concentrations of air's elemental constituents are precisely the same at all levels this means there is only about half the available oxygen at Crater Camp and without the acquired means to get enough oxygen from this air often serious problems will quickly occur.]One such example occurred on 20th July 2005 where a New Yorker had to be rescued from Crater Camp after succumbing to HACE. 7Summits will well know that survival and recovery depend on the speed at which the casualty can descend. Had one of us been the casualty in question we all agree that nothing would have given us greater assurance or appreciation than to know that the person rescuing us was the man with the record for the fastest ever descent of Kilimanjaro - Simon Mtuy, 2 hours 20. You can see a picture of him effecting this rescue here:
http://www.teamkilimanjaro.com/simonmtuy.htmlAny form of ignorance is dangerous. And yet it would be facile to describe a person's actions as irresponsible, or "a really bad example" simply because ignorant persons who are willing to act without reliable advice are capable of misconstruing the actions of such a person. You would surely know that in the case of an acclimatised attempt our athletes must acclimatise in the normal way and then spend two to three days in the crater
once they have already summitted. For 'unacclimatised' attempts it would be obvious to anyone who bothered to consider the matter, that the athlete would be required to demonstrate that they could safely reach the maximum altitude even if not strictly 'acclimatised' to it.
Speedclimbs should be seen as conducive to the safety of all Kilimanjaro climbers for a number of reasons, not least:- on account of the valuable and transferable gains made into the study of safe and effective methods of time-efficient acclimatisation, proven at a level otherwise un-explored. Eg. who else would be motivated to perform a VO2 max yielding Multi-stage Fitness Test at 5725m?
- once we receive official sanction from TANAPA we will likely be required to sponsor a rescue station at the Crater. Isn't it clear the extent to which this will accelerate safe rescues and thus save lives? You'll already know how many frightened guides have sat for hours beside the dead bodies of their once trusting Muzungu clients at Stella Point while slow rescue parties (who have probably never heard of the concept of 'speedclimbing' and who would perhaps think such activities 'a really bad example' or something they personally 'didn't approve of' if they had) are dispatched from Barafu or Kibo.
- because having highly fit and motivated people on the mountain who have an advanced understanding of acclimatisation and emergency HA 1st Aid, and the discipline and motivation to move quickly uphill towards a casualty when everyone else has succumbed to HA lethargy / surreality / apathy, is clearly a desirable thing.
... there's much more to say on this but time constrains.
"The gearlist and especially the comments are a load of yak****."We have assumed that you refer to our summarized Kilimanjaro kitlist at
http://www.teamkilimanjaro.com/kit.html and not our comprehensive Kilimanjaro kitlist at
http://www.teamkilimanjaro.com/kitlist.html.
7Summits, you have an interesting ethic in the matter of professional courtesy - is this considered acceptable your side of the Atlantic nowadays? Are you willing to qualify this remark with anything beyond the mere anecdotal, or your personal opinions?
Since there are certain unfortunate people who
are willing to digest our yak****, you force discussion:
The comments to which you allude are:
"-thermal vest / base layer
(insulates when cold, wicks sweat when hot)"
Have we missed some yak**** here?
"...water bottle (a few 500ml plastic Coke bottles will suffice. Ideally, in addition bring a Camelbak or similar)"
To people who have spent heavily on their wonderful 'don't fit in breast pockets on the freezing assault' Nalgenes, or their 'this also functions for nuclear waste disposal' Siggs, it may be disappointing to read that Coke bottles suffice. However they do. Please show us the yak**** here.
"-2 sweaters (or ideally 1 windproof fleece)"
What's the issue here?
"-good quality socks (2 pairs worn together, 1 thin : 1 thick)"
You've already offered anecdotal dissension for this. Are you aware that there is a certain sports sock manufacturer that is so satisfied with the logic that 'the inner layer sticks to the foot, the outer layer sticks to the boot, and any friction occurs between the two, not between foot and sock or sock and boot' that they offer a refund if you manage to achieve a blister while wearing their double-membraned socks? Hard as we have tried to get blisters by running up and down Kilimanjaro several times with no gaiters or screeguards, none of us has yet succeeded in meriting a refund on these socks and have failed miserably in getting anything that could be distantly associated with a blister. This is because friction between two two tight socks is negligible as it happens.
"Socks always stretch and may cause blistering. Wear undersized pairs."
We typically will wear sizes 3 UK designations smaller than our shoe size and have never suffered a blister when worn as above. Note the sufferer at the beginning of the first video presentation on our homepage:
www.teamkilimanjaro.com. Despite wearing two pairs of socks she let an inexperienced sales assistant get the better of her on sizing, her socks quickly stretched and bunched and, predictably, she blistered. Get the right size - experiment, around 2-3 sizes smaller than your shoe size - and you won't need to adjust them at all, except to let the scree out at Barafu if you run down without gaiters or screeguard.
It seems quite strange that you would not consider that if anyone were to get blisters it would be the people who habitually cover around 8 times the daily distance as the people you are advising and who have no time to stop and 'adjust' their socks, UNLESS
necessity had driven them to develop a means of avoiding blisters, of course. However, is your experience otherwise? Please identify the yak.
"-UV blocking sunglasses (high altitude = thin atmosphere)"
You don't agree?
-sun cream and blue/white barrier cream (nose and ears)
You don't agree?
-small first-aid kit (Compeed, Vaseline, lip-ice, Ibuprofen)
Surely?!
If we believe a certain equipment manufacturer produces kit of a consistently good quality that suffices ideally for the purpose discussed then we have no qualms in strongly recommending that the reader considers it.
Warm regards, and keep up the excellent work,
www.teamkilimanjaro.com
Discuss about the highest mountains on the seven continents
