This is Mt. Kilimanjaro. All 5,895 m (19,341 ft) of it.
And it is now officially my goal to conquer. Potentially with Money Rabbit. That’s right, my good blogger friend and I are planning on climbing this epic mountain together! :) How’s that for a close-knit blogging community?
To date, the highest mountain I’ve climbed is Grimface Mountain at 2,635 m (8,645 ft). And the longest hiking trip I’ve been on is 4 days. That being said, after reading numerous guides and trip reports on Kilimanjaro over the past few years, and talking to people who have done the climb, I know what to expect and I know I’m physically capable of doing it. Whether I can take the altitude, I don’t know. I’ve never climbed that high before, and you really won’t know how your body is affected by it until you’re actually there. But I do know that I am comfortable on multi-day climbs which involve 8-10 hours of hard hiking per day, at a maximum of 20-22km/day before I feel like absolute death. And with a little training, I know I will be able to build up my endurance even more.
I’m sure I’ve talked about it before, but going to Kenya and Tanzania has been a dream of mine ever since I was a kid. I’ve always been fascinated with that part of the world, and even contemplated a career in archaeology because of it. When the trip around the world with ex-BF got canceled a few years back, I was absolutely heartbroken for months. But now that this goal has been revived, I feel great. I don’t need anyone else to go with, but I think it would be absolutely amazing to share this experience with someone like Money Rabbit. We can stand on top of one of the 7 summits of the world, and feel proud that we’ve accomplished such an epic goal together.
Cost: approximately $6,000 (this includes flight, hiking guide/group, accommodation, meals, short safari, and a visit to Zanzibar)
Time: 3 weeks
(photo credit: www.tanzaniaparks.com)
—–
P.S. I just want to give a shout-out to Jim Yih who wrote a great article yesterday called The new breed of financial bloggers: Young, frugal and vocal, featuring myself and Young and Thrifty! :)
22 Responses to “Goal: Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro”
Author comments are in a darker gray color for you to easily identify the posts in the comments
Leave a Reply
As seen in…
Recent Comments
Categories
- annual goals (24)
- banking (27)
- blog (192)
- budget (96)
- car (41)
- contest (26)
- credit card (20)
- credit score (10)
- debt (28)
- design business (37)
- down payment (28)
- education (15)
- EI (16)
- emergency fund (18)
- entertainment (194)
- fitness (165)
- guest post (19)
- health care (56)
- housing (59)
- investing (43)
- job (301)
- making money (55)
- miscellaneous (308)
- monthly challenge (52)
- monthly goals (118)
- motivation (38)
- property (43)
- recipes and food (27)
- relationship (121)
- retirement (30)
- saving money (179)
- scooter (24)
- spending (447)
- sponsored post (10)
- tax refund (23)
- travel (313)
- vlog (2)
- weekly spending recap (93)
A friend of mine climbed Kilimanjaro a few years ago. He was in pretty good shape but he was the only one in his group to summit. He lost about 15 pounds during the climb even though he said he was eating high calorie foods to keep up his energy. He also got really sunburnt, and he was there in the month of December. I think it'd be a huge accomplishment to be able to summit, although the altitude would probably prevent me from going all the way (my friend said the altitude almost forced him to quit part way).
I'm really concerned about altitude sickness. Hopefully it won't affect me enough to stop me from summiting, but we will see! Also, wow 15 pounds lost? That's crazy.
FUN! Colorado has many wonderful 14,000 ft. mountains. If you want to practice, come on down and I'll host you. Money Rabbit can come too. :D
My recent post I Will Not Freak Out I Will Not Freak Out
Wow that's cool. A coworker of mine climbed Mt Kilimanjaro and she put up a slide show for us and told us about her trip. It seemed awesome. She said she was among the few to summit, but she is in great shape and had done the Ironman. I am sure it will be an incredible adventure.
My recent post Why Don’t We Have Any Money
Woo woo!!!! Look at us go!!!
Okay, I was budgeting for approximately $4000, but you might be right about $6000.
And I think we should DEFINITELY aim to get to the summit. I'm working out hard this summer (I hope!). I'm not sure what would be best in this situation, stronger cardio or climbing muscles, or a heck of a lot of both.
PS I love being blogging friends.
My recent post Sometimes I feel like a smarty pants
Well I'm only budgeting $6,000 because I want to do a safari and spend a week in Zanzibar. I think $4,000 will be more than enough if you just wanted to do the climb itself. But we will definitely have to discuss all the little details in a few weeks when I'm in Toronto. :)
I'm going to do a lot of hill running and hiking this summer too!
Yeah I'm hoping to be in fabulous shape by the time we end up going. The better shape I'm in, the more enjoyable the trip will be. Although I'm nowhere near an Ironman fitness level, I can hold my own while hiking at least. I hope. haha
That sounds like so much fun. I watched the Today show a while back and Ann Curry climed Kilimanjaro. I remember that she looked a little distorted because of the altitude. I hadn't realized how much the altitude affected people until I saw that episode. When are you thinking about doing your trip?
My recent post Building Our House
I would love to do the trip in 2012, but realistically since Money Rabbit and I both have to save around $6,000, we might be looking at 2013.
This is on my list too, for sure. Possibly even in 2013 too, though I have about 5 other big ideas (patagonia and anapurna are high on my wish list) and I'm not sure where this one fits in.
If you can swing it, you should consider hiking Mt. Whitney in California as an altitude practice climb – it is 14,505 ft (4,421 m). You need permits, so you need to plan in advance. It's a 22 mile day hike, or you can do it as a longer backpacking trip (recommended – the surrounding area is stunning). Still quite a bit shorter than Kili though!
Or if you ever find cheap tickets to LA area, we can climb San Gorgonio! It's doable as a day hike, but an overnight is way more fun. It is the tallest mountain in SoCal at 11,499 ft (3,505 m). I thought that was my highest elevation, but looking back, we did a hike called Rae Lakes Loop in the Sierras, and crossed a pass at 11,978' (3651m). That is probably the highest elevation I've hiked.
Bascilaly what I'm saying is… visit california and we can plan a hike together!
But also, yay for big dreams! Kilimanjaro!
My recent post Summer Travel Plans
Yes! I definitely want to plan a trip to hike in California. Hiking with you would be very cool, and great practice for higher altitudes! Let's plan something, and then maybe one day you and T can come up to BC and go hiking up here with me. :)
Yes! BC is so beautiful!
My recent post Summer Travel Plans
Wow Krystal, that will be a big accomplishment, I can't even imagine what it feel like when you actually up there, but Mt. Kilimanjaro look breath taking. I hope your plan goes through.
My recent post Good Debt vs Bad Debt
Now that's a bucket list-worthy goal! I'm sure you'll have an awesome time, and even if you don't get there until 2013 you'll feel THAT much better about reaching the summit because you've spent so long planning/saving for it.
Great goal! Everything I've ever heard about Kilimanjaro makes it sound totally amazing. I would love to see Zanzibar as well, and not just because I think it's the greatest place name ever.
I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was younger too, but I was heavily influenced by Indiana Jones :D
My recent post Weekly Summary–April 18 to 24
I'm planning to do it in 2012 too!! :). I was budgeting $4000. Spice tour and possibly safari too.
One of my personal goals is to see/climb the seven summits :) I've only seen acongcagua and everest so far though.
My recent post The Ultimate Guide to Canadian Deals Websites
PS Thanks for mentioning me and thank you Jim for writing such a cool article! Grrrl power ;)
My recent post The Ultimate Guide to Canadian Deals Websites
wha!? That rocks! DH and I are planning a Kili climb for a year from now. Life is an adventure, and if you do hiking beforehand I'm sure you guys will summit.
Thrifty bonus- check out artofnonconformity.com and figure out travel hacking. We've been playing credit card mileage games and are poised to get a free flight to Kili with our airline miles. That'll shave off 1000 or so off your final budget.
My recent post One Year Later- Was Our Cheap Disney Vacation Worth the Money
Ohh thanks for the link! I'll definitely check it out. Right now I'm hoarding points from my Amex in hopes of keeping my travel costs down.
I feel the need to comment since I've done the climb in January 2008 :-)
First of all, it is as AMAZING as it seems, and then more.
I know you're quite familiar with mountain climbing and stuff, but still. You need to remember that altitude sickness can affect anybody, no matter what your physical condition is. Moreover, one can have effect one time, and react differently the second time around. You cannot predict how your body will react. Keeping that in mind, it's ok to aim for the summit, but you need to listen to your body once you're up there, and accept to turn around if need be (anyway, I'm sure you know the consequences).
I did the climb as part of fundraising activity, so we were a big group. The conditions were really ideal, and 22 out of 25 made the summit. The trek was organized by a local (tanzanian) company, and we had cooks and carriers with us. I know it sounds like a big luxury, but not that much. The crew was really amazing, they were happy to help us anytime and each night they were greating us at the camp with songs and dances (because of course, they are used to the altitude and they were at the camp waay sooner than us). Best memories! And fyi the crew is well paid (as opposed to other regular jobs in this country) and they love what they do. Some of them made the climb more than 50x!
It took us 6 days to go up, and about 1.5 day to come down. The hardest part was without a doubt the final climb. We left the last camp (4600m) at around 11 p.m., so we could summit at sunrise. The first ones reached the summit at 6 am, I made it at around 7h30 (I was in the last ones – I really struggled in the end). We do this last climb during the night, since it would be too dangerous to go down in the dark afterwards.
Anyway, I could go on and on about the Kili…. Just let me know if you have questions.
Best of luck!
Wow. That is awesome.
Though… What about money to buy equipment and hiking clothes and stuff? Or do you have all the gear already?
My recent post Unemployment Contingency Plans
I have so much hiking equipment and clothing that I don't think I'll ever run out! I don't think I'd need to buy much if any – gear for this trip. The only things I don't have are a backpacking stove and a tent, but those are things that will be provided by the guide company (they cook all of our meals!). However, I will eventually have to buy those things myself for my own personal use.