How did the kit do & Diamox

So for my final blog entry in the Kilimanjaro saga, I’d thought I’d share my feelings on the kit, clothing and how it worked and what we would have done differently. Previous entries documented my decision on the sleeping bag choice and other such excitements.

Clearly it’s important to have a good set of ‘broken in’ walking boots. We carried them in hand luggage as this was the one bit of kit we felt we simply couldn’t afford to be without if the luggage was lost – which it wasn’t. So a fairly obvious tip 1: carry the important stuff in your hand luggage.

On the whole the kit all worked more or less according to plan. The main lesson, I believe, is that you do absolutely not have to throw money at kit. All our kit worked, delivered the goods and there was no point when I felt that I wished I spent a bit more on the stuff. I’ll come onto the minor things I’d change later.

We (well the porters) actually carried our kit in four 50 litre ‘dry sacks’. We had purchased dry sacks from Lidl for £6.99 each. However, my sleeping bag wouldn’t fit through the opening of the Lidl dry sack (you get what you pay for) and we had to borrow a more expensive, flexible Alpkit dry sack for my sleeping bag (and other kit) and used three of the Lidls sacks. However, in principle, the dry sack approached worked well.

The Karrimor self inflating sleeping mats (which actually, in reality, require you to blow them up more for maximum comfort) were indispensible. The campsites were mainly very hard stony areas and the mats made the sitting and sleeping in the tents bearable. You will spend a lot of time in your tents (about 7:00pm – 6:00am) and comfort there is well worth while. I can’t believe that the much more expensive ‘Therm-a-rest’ mats would be any better. When you consider the Karrimor mats were about £20 (brand new) from eBay compared the ‘Therma-a-rest’ mats at circa £65 - £70, I believe we made the correct decision.

We took several pairs of socks and changed them every other day with a fresh pair for the summit. It’s a balance but we think we had it about right. Some days were fairly short and we changed out of walking socks into woolly socks after walking. The woolly socks are also useful for the electronic kit – see later. In terms of clothes, we had two sets of kit which was about right.

The cheap kit (head torches – with new Duracell batteries) all worked beautifully. We never got the metal ‘SIGG’ water bottles filled up with hot water to act as a hot water bottle (but it’s still a good idea) but it is worth noting that the SIGG bottles places in woolly socks didn’t freeze on the summit whilst at least one of our supposedly ‘insulated’ bottles (but they were cheap) did freeze on summit.

My sleeping bag (the Royal Marines Commando Arctic Weather Sleeping System- rated to -30degC purchased 2nd hand from eBay), with the silk liner, performed superbly. It was only the last night at Barafu (4,600m) where I needed to wear anything other than boxers in the sleeping bag and then it was almost too warm. My wife’s borrowed sleeping bag (from Alpkit), again with a silk liner, was also fine and she was perfectly snug.

Most of the time you are walking with a simple shirt and fleece because, whilst the sun is shinning, you are at altitude and there is a chill in the air. For the summit, I was dressed in a ‘skin base layer’, a standard walking shirt, two fleeces and my Katmandu walking jacket. I was so warm the jacket was never done up. I also had my standard skiing thermal pants and both my pairs of walking trousers on. My ski gloves with thermal liners and my ski hat completed the kit. All perfect and no worries.

Take lots of baby wipes. There are no showers (most days, except the last at Barafu which is a dry camp, we got a small bowl of water between two to wash with) and a ‘baby wipe bath’ does leave you feeling a lot better. We over provided for baby wipes but no-one had a serious case of diarrhoea which is when you go through them fastest. If you don’t use them all and don’t want them at the end of your trek, the guides are always grateful for them.

A brief note on water purification. Given the conditions, it’s a testament to the staff that none of us had any serious diarrhoea, Once the bottle water had run out it was water from streams boiled. They used a pressure kettle to ensure that the water boils at the proper temperature (as, at altitude, water boils at a lower temperature). Despite the fact that the water was boiled, we always added water purification tablets to our water bottles. We used a ‘one tablet’ solution (Life Systems, high strength Chlorine Diox Tablets) purchase in an outdoors shop. Others used a two tablet solution which is fiddly because you have to remember to add the 2nd tablet after ½ hour and this is not ideal when walking.

However, having said all that, it’s all a bit of a fallacy because the 1st thing you do is drink gallons of tea and soup made from the boiled water which is the exact same water you are adding the tablets to – so, in retrospect, I’d say that the water purification tablets were a waste.

On the technical kit we had one or two disappointments. The Olympus uTough camera we purchased specially (rated to -10degC) and which had been kept in my wife’s down jacket inside pocket (the jacket was open), froze on the summit and was useless for about 10 mins whilst it thawed out. Whereas the cheapo ~5 year old Nikon Coolpix I’d stuffed inside a woolly sock inside my jacket (which was also open) worked perfectly – it did have a set of new batteries though :~).

My little ‘Vado’ pocket video cam also had the woolly sock treatment and was fine. There was GSM mobile phone signal most of the way (as is evidenced by the regular tweets I supplied on progress). I found no signal at Uhuru Peak itself, but plenty at Stella Point. It is worth noting that my Blackberry had a much better capacity to pick up a signal than Pat’s iPhone which rarely had a signal.

Obviously, for the kit with lithium-ion batteries I had taken a spare battery and made sure both were fully charged before we left and I’d saved a new one for the summit – all standard stuff really.

So what didn’t work and what did we wish we had done differently? The only thing which really springs to mind is that we had not taken enough spare batteries for the head torches. We had a couple of wind-up torches for use in the tent but these were not really useful for reading. I mentioned previously that you will spend a lot of time in your tent and here is why:

The mess tent is the tent in which the porters sleep (& eat). You are fed first and, whilst you are being fed either the porters are outside in the cold, or, if it’s really damp and cold outside, they are in the tent lining the sides watching you eat and waiting patiently for you to get out so it’s their turn. So, in short, the longer you linger in the mess tent, the colder and more hungry the porters. Therefore there is a lot of pressure (not overt) not to linger in the mess tent and to go back to your tents when dinner is over. This means you are in your tent by about 7:00pm and it’s absolutely pitch black outside.

So, because we had only one spare set of batteries for the head torch (and you need a fresh set and a spare set for the summit attempt), we ended up not using them for reading in the evening. Thus we lay in darkness. So, pack more batteries for your head torch or take some form of lantern.

The only other thing I’d recommend is some form of dust mask or bandana you can place over your nose and mouth for the way down. Most of the team were left with hacking coughs from the dust. Stupidly, I actually had one in the luggage but didn’t pack it for the summit trip – mistake.

That’s about it on the kit front. I’m selling my sleeping bags back on eBay but everything else is being kept for future use as the kids go camping regularly and we will, of course, continue to enjoy walking in the Welsh countryside.

However, by far the best investment of the whole trip was the additional payment for the private chemical toilet. The camp sites are provided with ‘long drops’ but the smell as your approach them is fairly spectacular and, at night, they can be quite a long way away from the tents (thank god). So invest in private toilet facilities – you won’t regret it.

A final word on the Diamox front. In the end, we decided to take ½ a pill on day two (before we set off for the Shira Plateau @ 3, 840m = 12,500ft) and then a full pill every morning before the summit. I did get the pins and needles in the toes and my fingers from time to time but it came and went and was perfectly bearable. Yes you needed to pee more often (in fact, pee breaks were rapidly renamed ‘diamox breaks’) but as I didn’t suffer any altitude sickness at all (of course, I have no idea whether this was due to diamox or not) I was happy with the decisions in this respect.

If you are going – enjoy!