Heather's Adventures in Lesotho

The Maseru Crew – Katie, Bhavya and me – at the beginning of Day 1.

Last Kilimanjaro related post, I promise. Besides “How was it?” there are several questions that I get asked most commonly and I thought it would be nice to document them here:

Which route did you choose and why?
We narrowed our choices down to Machame and Rongai and ultimately went with Rongai because Andrew had previously summited using Lemosho, which shares a significant amount of trail with Machame. From base camp (Kibo Hut) there were only 3 or 4 other groups who summited with us – so maybe 20 people max. On the other hand, the summit route used by Machame/Lemosho et al had probably almost 100 people so I was really happy with our choice. Rongai descends using Marangu (aka the Coca Cola route) and I thought the views we had on Rongai were better.

Did you use Diamox and did it work?
Diamox is a medicine that is used to prevent high altitude sickness. I don’t understand why it works, but it is pretty commonly recommended. I was on the fence about using it until 2 days before the climb when I met someone who said that her use of diamox during a high altitude climb was the difference between everyone else in her group hating life and her singing show tunes to keep their spirits up. Our lead guide, August, also recommended using it. There were a couple of people in our group who had to stop using it because of bad side effects (mainly gastrointestinal). Obviously I have no idea whether it made a difference for me or not, but I like to think that it did. My best advice is to do what your guide tells you .

What do you wish you had known before?

Besides how hard it is? So many things:

1. I wish I had known how awesome hiking poles are because I should have been using them in my everyday life for hiking. Holy cow they give you so much more stability! I  read that using them takes a significant amount of pressure off your joints on the descent, and was planning to use them specifically for that but they were also really great for the regular hiking as well. After my experience on Kili I will definitely be investing in a pair.
2. I wish I had known that our guide company would issue us all standard duffle bags to put our things in. You could literally show up with a rolling suitcase and be fine. Instead I had packed my large backpacking backpack and large duffle bag to give them options of what to carry and we used neither of those.
3. Pack baby wipes for cleaning up as there are no showers on the trails. Thankfully others in my group had packed plenty, but you may not be so lucky!
4. Pack 2-3 energy bars per day. I was fortunate that I brought a bunch back from the US with me, but others were definitely missing them on summit night especially. My favorite was Luna’s Peanut Honey Pretzel, yum.
5. Pack a nail brush. I trimmed my nails down as far as I could and there was STILL dirt underneath them. So gross. I would have paid to use somebody’s nail brush, or traded an energy bar 🙂
6. Don’t forget that you’re going to need clean clothes for after the hike. That was definitely an after thought for me, but since I was visiting friends before the climb I had extra clothes. Others were relegated to wearing the same clothes for the two days before we traveled home.