In October 2024 I went on a two-week trip to Tanzania, and completed a six-day expedition to the summit of Kilimanjaro via the Machame route.

Equipment & Planning

Full Equipment List

Item	Notes
Duffel bag	95L North Face Base Camp
Rucksack (day)	SALOMON – Trailblazer 30 – Walking backpack
Dry bags (packing)	Ultra-Sil Dry Bag Set
Power bank	Anker Power Bank, 24,000mAh 65W Portable Charger
Watch charger
iPhone charger
Usb-c charger
Headlamp	Rechargable
Water purification tablets	Boots Micropur Water Purification Tablets Extra Strength
Anti-maleria tablets	Daily
Dry shampoo
Electrolyte mix
Diamox	To be taken on days >2500m. No interaction with anti maleria meds.
Compostable wet wipes
Immodium
Adhesive body warmers	Hot Hands
Hiking poles
Vaccines	Taken beforehand via travel clinic.
Sleep liner
Sleeping bag
Sleeping pillow	Sea to Summit – Foamcore Pillow
Gators	Sea to Summit
Balaclava
Hiking socks	Summit night: Darn Tough Mountaineering OTC
Hiking sock liners
Hiking boots
Crocs	Fleece lined, for walking around at camp.
Gloves
Sweater
Sunglases	CAT3 or CAT4
Down booties
Thermal tops
Thermal bootoms
Raincoat gt
Rain trousers
Water bottle/bladder
Warm jacket/down
Hat/neck scarf
Warm hat
Gopro
Gopro batteries	Cold weather batteries
Summit trousers	Skiing trousers, heavy weight
Fleece trousers
Trek trousers
Ear plugs	3M. Sanitise hands before use

I was generally pretty happy with my packing choices for this trip. The only major gap in my planning was probably the number of snacks – I had read elsewhere that there’d be three meals a day and that people often bring too much food for themselves. Although it’s true that a lot of food was provided – and surprisingly high quality given the remoteness of the camps – I certainly would have enjoyed more carb-rich snacks. On summit night in particular, I wish I had packed some caffeine energy gels.

The dry bags were a particularly useful addition. Thankfully there was very little rain on our trip, although the dry bags made it significantly more streamlined for organising equipment and clothes. Normally we would wake on the mountain around 5 AM, and we’d only have 15 minutes or so to prepare before breakfast. Having some colour coded bags to throw things into made packing and unpacking a bit easier.

In terms of medicine, we brought the typically recommended essentials. Sometimes people have reported adverse effects when taking Diamox to alleviate altitude sickness, but we took a daily dose above 2,500m and felt no adverse effects from either the medicine or altitude. It would have been nicer if we found water purification tablets with less-strong chlorine flavouring, but we offset the chemical taste by adding flavoured electrolyte powder to our bottles.

Lastly, if you’re a light sleeper, ear plugs are amazing. Paired with a beanie to pull over your eyes makes sleeping in noisy camps much less of a challenge.

Getting to the Mountain

With a group of friends, I flew from London to Tanzania with Air Ethiopia, via Addis Ababa, and arrived at Kilimanjaro Airport after around 12 hours of travelling. When we arrived, we were greeted by our tour operator, Spider Tours, who drove us an hour to the town of Moshi, where we would be staying before starting our expedition.

The Ascent

We started at Machame Gate, 1,800m. The biome is tropical rainforest, and there was very light rain as we started the climb. At the gate there is a last-minute opportunity to purchase equipment, with some mountaineering essentials available to buy next to the visitors’ centre where climbers register. This was the last time on the mountain we saw Western-style sitting toilets, and the last time we ate under a permanent structure. A note of caution: watch out for the monkeys. There’s a standard packaged lunch trekkers have at the gate, including yoghurt cups, which (interestingly) the monkeys are rather fond of.

We ascended between 500m – 1,000m each day, and every day the surrounding foliage and landscape would be different. At the start, we began in dense rainforest, but as the air thinned the vegetation became increasingly sparse.

Most days were three to eight hours of hiking, at a very conservative pace, which wasn’t too strenuous. The camps were quite large and with groups coming and going at various times. There were some shared toilets, but the conditions were not great. We had arranged for a portable toilet for our group which quite significantly improved quality of life while at camp.

We ate three hot meals a day: for breakfast typically omlets, fruits and french toast. For lunch we’d have sandwiches or sometimes hot stews, and dinner included soups alongside fried fish, chicken, vegetables, rice or pasta. It may have been the effects of exertion, but the meals at camp tasted particularly good.

Summiting

On Day 4, we started at 6am and it was scheduled that we would make our way from Barranco Camp 3,960m to Karanga Camp 3,963m, which would typically take around five hours. As we were progressing well during the day and reached Karanga ahead of schedule, we decided to push through and skip Karanga Camp, going directly to Barafu Camp 4,640m, reaching our rest stop after around eight hours of hiking.

At around 6pm, once we’d finished dinner, after an already tougher-than-expected day, our guides told us that the weather was favourable and that we should take the opportunity to summit that night – fearing if we rested an extra day the conditions may degrade. Already tired, we agreed, and set our alarms for 11pm – as that is when our summit night began.

The summit experience was by far the most surreal activity of the trip. It began in reasonably comfortable conditions, walking in the dark with headlamps. We were supplied with near-boiling water in our bottles, as later into the night it would become cold enough to freeze, even inside our insulated bags. As time passed all that could be seen was a trail of lights leading in front and behind, as on the steep climb up we could make out the headlamps of hundreds of other climbers following the same route.

After three hours conditions became less comfortable, with temperatures reaching -17°C, winds picking up, and other climbers succumbing to the conditions and being very visibly… unwell.

Once six hours of darkness had passed, we made our way to the ‘first’ summit on the mountain – Stella Point 5,756m, just in time for sunrise.

After a final push for another hour, we made it to the highest point, Uhuru Peak 5,895m.

Descent & Recovery

After reaching the summit and taking in the views, we began the descent back down to Barafu Camp 4,640m. After around ~13 hours of hiking in total we reached the camp, ate, and slept. Our guides suggested we could head down to the next camp – which would have put us two days ahead of schedule – but we declined, preferring to rest.

The next day was our descent day, in 7 hours we made it down to Mweka Gate 1,630m, and were driven back to Moshi to rest, having completed the expedition a day early.

We spent the extra day around our hotel, after exploring Moshi and having dinner at a local café. Before heading back to London, we travelled to the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, where we spent more time recovering, as well as spending lots of time snorkelling and doing beach activities.