MTI Mkubwa camp to Shira I - Blog

By: BW Admin (9/3/2018)

Date: 10/16/2016

This blog is part of the trip: Kowtowing to Kilimanjaro - The nine day western approach

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This may have been the most difficult day of hiking on the trip from the standpoint of pure elevation gain in short stretches, not adjusting for altitude of course. We gained about 2,200 feet but a lot of it was on some pretty intense vertical inclines. It was also hot and dusty on this portion with a lot of loose dirt in places. A bandanna to prevent inhaling dust on this leg will definitely come in handy if it hasn't rained lately.

Things open up a lot more than from the previous day where you're hiking through the jungle, there are some pretty nice vistas for photo ops along the way. This is also the day you will finally round a bend and get the first good look of Kilimanjaro on the horizon.

On this leg some of the porters went ahead of us and set up the mess tent for lunch, so we had a covered sit down lunch break half way through the day before we continued hiking. They also had the courtesy to set up the toilet tent. Then they took it all down, ran ahead and had it all set up again when we got to the Shira I camp. Really can’t say enough good things about those porters.

Several members of the group started out the trip with varying degrees of what we thought was a head cold. Unfortunately one of the hikers symptoms had gotten progressively worse throughout the day and he was struggling to keep up. The mood was a bit somber at camp when we arrived due to this unfortunate development. He wasn’t able to eat much at dinner and the head guide did a medical examination and detected fluid in his lungs.