UKH

Hi guys

Looking for some advice from anyone who has been up Kilimanjaro. In particular what to wear on summit night. How cold is it actually likely to be?!

I'm going as staff and the kit info is generic advice which seems tailored to people not necessarily regular hill goers. I'm anticipating the pace will be slow but can't imagine being so cold as to need a down jacket whilst on the move? Wondering whether to pack my primaloft belay jacket instead as more likely to wear this on the move.

In Scotland I would normally wear base layer, micro fleece and shell. On a very cold day I might wear a primaloft gilet underneath but have almost always felt sweaty when climbing with that extra layer. On a few very cold days I have climbed, or at least seconded, in my belay jacket.

Legwear, I was planning to wear merino tights and soft shell, again i wouldn't wear much more ski touring on stormy days in Scotland or the Alps. Is this likely to suffice?

Any words of wisdom? What did you wear? Is the pace likely to be such that a down jacket is comfortable to wear on the move?

Cheers

Iain

In reply to IainMunro:
It was extremely cold on the top when I was up there. Minus 30 of I recall correctly. I remember wearing 4 layers - one of them a massive fleece pullover as well as heavy duty hard shell - and not being too warm. The slow speed of ascent should ensure you don't get too warm as well as it being dark for most of ascent.

In reply to Gone for good:

Agreed - I've climbed Kilimanjaro a good few times and it's always been extremely cold on the high-camp-to-summit climb. You'd be well advised to take mittens and the best socks you can find (including inner layers). I use the Lorpen high altitude socks and Mountain Equipment Fitzroy mittens.

Clothing wise: Mountain Equipment Fitzroy outer jacket/ heavy fleece/ micro fleece/ thermal base layer. Montane Vapour Rise trousers. Boots: don't be fooled into taking light weight walking boots, Scarpa Manta's (or something similar) are better because of they're intended for cold conditions.

You'll only need this stuff for the summit climb - it's approach-shoes and t-shirts for the walk in.

If you're going as staff, pack a down jacket for the summit push...I can pretty much guarantee that someone in your group will need it. And the usual selection of chocolate bars, headache tablets and thermos for the group.

It's easy to get caught out on Kilimanjaro because of the 'it's only a walk' tag. You might find it a bit colder and a bit tougher than you expected!

In reply to IainMunro:

My big mistake was wearing hillwalking boots. Thought I was going to end up losing toes. I remember inside my tent was -15c when getting ready I didn't expect it to be so cold. It felt warm compared to when I opened the door and stepped outside.

In reply to IainMunro:
I've just come back from my second trip to Kilimanjaro (summitted 3rd January). I wore the following on summit night:

- Thin merino wool base layer. Micro fleece top. Softshell jacket. I also had a large down jacket in my bag but 3 hrs into summit day, my wife complained of being very cold so I gave the jacket to her (on top of her own down jacket). As such, it was the coldest I've ever been on a mountain and I really suffered until the sun came up around 6am. I run very warm, but on this occasion I was utterly freezing. I also took a pair of PHD Omega down mitts as an emergency back-up to my Black Diamond gloves. The PHDs were used pretty much all night (it's hard to keep your hands warm when your core is so damn cold).

On my legs, I wore a pair of merino wool leggings with a pair of softshell 'winter' trousers (i.e. fleece lined). Just about did the job down below.

Moral of the story: be wary of a wife that still gets cold in 6 layers, two of which are down jackets.

- The first time I was on Kili, (August 2006) I wore a base layer, fleece, thick fleece and a Paramo Cascada jacket. I was suitably warm on this occasion.

With regards to the pace, it's predictably slow as you would expect at 5000m+. Can't recall anyone overheating in their down jacket on summit night.


EDIT: Footwear-wise, I wore these on every single day, including summit night. http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/scarpa-r-evo-gtx-walking-boots-p304782

With a light trekking sock lower down, and a thick wool pair for summit night, they were absolutely spot on.

In reply to IainMunro:

As the other posts say it damn cold. The point is that you start at or before midnight so it gets colder for a lot of the climb and its slow because of so many people. Disposable hand warmers, 2 per hand (its a simple plod so mitts work as there is nothing to do with your hands other than hold poles)

But I have also seen people in great big down ski jackets who were cold to start with but by the time they got to the rim, or the sun was coming up, they were cooking.

260 Merino T and long johns, fleece and thick trousers (Mammut Champ pants), over trousers and water jacket (as windproof layer) optionally but neither I nor my wife used, belay jacket to put over.

Don't under estimate the cold. Also summit day is noticeably harder than every other day, depends on route but 1300m ascent and 2000m descent so make sure everyone knows, particularly if they have no experience of altitude, and few do.

In reply to IainMunro:

Slightly off topic. Kili is dirty and gritty, its a volcano, so the black grit gets everywhere. Use freezer bags to store changes of clothes, so they are clean, your kit bag will get gritty inside. Summit day bag with NEW thick socks & clean pants does wonders for your morale.

In reply to IainMunro:

Hi, good luck on your Kilimanjaro trip I did it last January, it was a great experience. In regards to clothing I wore the following ;
Synthetic base layer,
Merino long sleeve t shirt,
Prima - loft jacket,
Down jacket,

I have to say reading kit reviews I had the impression the kit lists were overkill and just hoping that you would part with some extra cash. But upon actually being on the mountain I can see why you need the items, on summit day my temperature was pretty stable on a couple of occasions I needed to undo the zip of the down jacket, but that didn't last for long until it got too cold. Gloves I used 3 pairs a liner glove, an insulated glove and some buffalo mitts. My hands did get cold but I think this was the liner glove and insulated were too tight a fit.

In reply to Gone for good:
-30?! Lmao

In reply to Simon80:

Why?
Put it this way. I was recently in Poland and the nighttime temperature was -15 to -20.
It was a hell of a lot colder on Kilimanjaro.

In reply to Kilimanjaroadviseguides:

...... essential for keeping warm and comfortable at high altitudes such as

Gloves (leather gloves filled with cotton inside),
.... crampons


So is this the 'Extreme Gardening Route' I haven't done that one.

In reply to IainMunro:

I think you've got the picture now.......

I wore Kohflach synthetic B3 boots with the padded inners and I think I was the only one who could still feel their feet on the Umbwe route up - plus it was a lot easy ploughing down the scree on the Honboro descent route.

One point about gloves - you simply don't want to take your hand out for a second to fiddle with the camera on the summit so think about something you can work easily with gloves on if you want those all important shots.

In reply to IainMunro:

I second the poor choice of hillwalking boots. Wasn't that cold when I did it. Prob around -10. But the going on summit day was so veeeeeeeery slow. I thought I'd be fine with my Meindl Borneo and some merino winter socks. It was warm enough as long as I kept moving, but we had a short break every hour or so and after the second one I just couldn't get my toes warm any more. Every break I could feel the cold seeping out. And the pace was not high enough the get my blood pumping warmth back into them.
By the time the sun emerged I had long lost all feeling in my toes, but I kept on going, not wanting to turn back at all. Eventually, the warmer temperatures helped and I was relieved when I felt all ten of my toes again when reaching the crater rim.

What to take depends largely on the time of year and current weather situation. It's a bit like here in the UK. Be prepared for everything

In reply to IainMunro:

Was bloody freezing when we did it, it may just be a walk, but don't underestimate it! I was significantly colder on Kili than I have been in the Alps or Scotland and as people have said, its probably down to the very slow pace... Don't forget to insulate your drink somehow, I remember stopping for snack and a drink to find a solid block of ice in my water bottle and a snickers bar as solid as a brick. Definitely worth taking the down jacket.

In reply to hairy51:


We took Rab down pullovers (which turned out to be very useful for cold mornings on the Serengeti too) and fleeces. I did do it in pretty light walking boots without frostbite. It's true that it was cold enough to freeze a water bottle inside my rucksack - and we did slog steeply uphill for hours without needing to take anything off!

In reply to IainMunro:
When I did it, the altitude affected some people really badly and they were barely moving, but others not at all (not too surprisingly, those of us who were regular hillwakers anyway and did all the extra acclimatisation walks our guides offered after we'd reached camp). We split into a fast group and a slow group after a while.

I'd foolishly put on a base layer, t-shirt, fleece, woolen jumper, down jacket and waterproof coat since it was cold when we left camp. I was comfortably warm initially, but baking as soon as we split up and started moving more quickly! Two pairs of socks and cheap boots were fine for me, and a balaclava made the whole thing more comfortable.

As others have said, water will freeze, but my bottle fared much better than the bladder (the mouthpiece was rock solid so no chance of getting anything out).

In reply to Simon80:


I agree with you. -30 seems very unlikely to me. Here's the Kilimanjaro weather forecast for this week:

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Kilimanjaro/forecasts/5963

You can see that day or night this week, the summit temperature is between -5 and -7 C.

Wanderer100, in the post after Simon80's, said "Why? Put it this way. I was recently in Poland and the nighttime temperature was -15 to -20. It was a hell of a lot colder on Kilimanjaro." But was it actually colder? Or did it just seem a lot colder? Of course -7 at that altitude feels a lot colder than it would at sea level, for various reasons.

PS I've been up to Kili summit.

In reply to abseil:

Fair enough.
Maybe it was the altitude maybe it was the windchill. As others have said my water bottles froze solid but not before leaking over my camera bag which looked like a big ice cube when I took it out of the rucksack at the summit.
The cold killed all my batteries as well

AFRICA

Africa’s official minimum temperature is -11°F (-23.9°C) at Ifrane, Morocco on February 11, 1935. This is even a colder reading than has ever been reported from the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro (anecdotal reports indicating readings as low as -8°F/-22°C having apparently been measured there).

In reply to Gone for good:


Thanks for your reply, that's interesting. I was on Kili summit in February, and it wasn't too cold (I've felt colder at sea level this week! - so subjective for me) - but I've since read that February/March are the warm season there.

In reply to IainMunro:

Thanks for all the helpful replies. As it turned out we apparently had some of the worst weather guides could remember in a long time, very wet every day.

On summit night I wore merino long johns with winter weight soft shell trousers. Short sleeved merino and long sleeved merino. Micro fleece, primaloft gilet and a gore tex shell. At 5600m I changed the hardshell for a down jacket. Hands were warm enough with dachstein mitts although some people had down mitts so depends what you're used to.

Was glad of all the advice before leaving but I guess as with any mountains conditions can be very variable. If I was doing it again I would recommend a synthetic belay jacket rather than down as it was so wet each day that down was fairly useless even in the campsites until summit night.

What a fantastic mountain though, great experience!

Iain

In reply to IainMunro:

Did al of your group make it??

In reply to THE.WALRUS:
Yeah 100% success, all 20 made it. One of the girls put in an amazing effort plagued by dysentery on summit night which must have been absolutely miserable

Iain