Training for Kilimanjaro

I need help and advice. Total backpacker and hiker amateur. But I am wanting to to do the Mt. Kilimanjaro climb. The wife says I am nuts, but a a man I work with is doing it next month. I am 47 yr old male that wants to do prepare over the next 2 years for the Mt. Kilimanjaro hike.
For training and preparation, I have been walking about 5 to 6 miles a day for the last year. We live in Texas along the hot and humid and flat Gulf Coast so no hills.

To prepare for the mountain, I am told I need to be able to carry about 30lbs in a pack.

Can the experienced backpackers and hikers please recommend a brand and type back pack to purchase and train with. Also, I assume I just need to load up the pack with a few items and start walking. What is a reasonalble schedule to work my way up with total weights for the pack.

Thanks for any and all help and advice !!

You might check the Mountaineers books for the title, "Expedition Planning" or some such, by Clyde Soles and Phil Powers, methinks. Has some of the type of info you desire. Also a title on training for climbing I seem to recall as well.

-Brian in SLC

Nothing beats walking WITH the pack. The Kili hike will require a large volume pack, something 5000 ci +. There are many packs out there and they all fit differently. If you have access to an REI or the like, it would be best to go there and get measure and try them on. Once you have that done, go buy a 25lb bag of rice and put it in your new pack. You need to hike uphill. Hiking on flat land is not the same as steep hills. Using a stairmaster and some intense leg workouts (squats, leg extensions and dead lifts) will aid you as well. Try searching on summitpost.com's forum for better answers.

Ahhhmmmm, nooo, Kili does not require a large pack. You are required by Tanzanian law to hire local guides and porters (really cheap, like a dollar a day for the porters, so hire 2 per person). The porters carry all your gear, so all you need is a day pack for hiking from one camp to another, big enough for lunch, rain jacket, water, and your camera gear (bring lots of film or gigabyte memory cards, plus lenses). The porters pack up camp each morning and have it set up for you when you arrive in the afternoon. You can transport your gear to the Park in duffles or suitcases. Your guide arranges the food locally, and he and the porters prepare all the meals.

A bit unlike the other 7 Summits! Oh, yeah, bring any old, no longer needed expedition clothing and boots to give to the porters after your climb. It is hard to get there, plus it is really out of reach on their wages.

But you will have a bit of hiking to do each day, and you will accumulate a bit of altitude on the way. Since you say you plan to train for a couple years, here's a suggestion (Brian is right that Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills, called "MFOTH", and several other books from the Mountaineers Press give training advice) -

You will need sturdy hiking boots. Not expedition-type double plastics, but good leather boots. Get them fit properly by a good boot fitter. It's been a few years since I was in Houston, but I recall that there are a couple good shops there and in Austin. Or get them in one of the training trips I will suggest below. Your boots need to be broken in properly, which will fit your training plan.

Keep doing the 4-5 milers in your current shoes or trail-runners, but get started on the new boots soon. Start with short hikes, say a couple miles, in your new boots until broken in, for the first couple of weeks, at least 3 times a week. After a few weeks, increase your distance to 4 or 5 miles, then add a 10-miler once a week. You could go over to Hill Country to do a bit of climb every couple of weeks. Be sure to drink plenty of water with a hydration mix in it (I prefer Hydrolyte, Bill Gookin's mix, but things like GuO2 or Cytomax are good). I lived in Mississippi for 10 years, so I have some familiarity with your 90-90 weather, except that Houston is much hotter and much more humid, so lots and lots of water.

You can add some weight in a pack. A good way to do this is to carry the camera gear, rain jacket, and water you intend to take in the pack. Lots of people like to get a hydration pack (Camelback, for example) in a style that allows carrying some gear. But keep in mind the porters will be carrying your tent, sleeping bag, food, cook gear, etc.

Now, most of Texas is pretty low altitude. So add in a couple of week to 2 week trips each year to a high altitude location. You will be going up to 19,340 ft (5895 meters), which poses special challenges, although by most routes, the hiking is easy. I suggest going to Colorado (popular with Texans, anyway, I have noticed). When you arrive, take some short hikes in the foothills, up to maybe 6000-7000 ft. This will get you a bit acclimatized. Then perhaps go to Rocky Mountain NP, camp at one of the higher campgrounds, and do some hikes up toward, for example, Longs Peak to the Boulder Field. And add a final hike to the summit of Longs via the Keyhole route (the easiest). There are enough 14,000 ft peaks in Colorado that you might choose something other than the very popular Rocky Mountain NP area. Elbert is the highest in Colorado and has a number of trails at lower altitude. And, well, there are something like 50 choices of peaks. The idea is to get some altitude and find out how your body adjusts to altitude. Acclimatizing is best done by the "climb high, sleep low" approach, and when going above 10,000 ft, move your sleeping location up by an average of 1000 ft/day. The final push can be 3000-4000 ft.

When you are doing your altitude hikes, you will want to have your boots that you will be hiking Kili. If you do go to Colorado, I suggest Gary Neptune's shop in Boulder as a good place to get the boots (Neptune Mountaineering, near the University of Colorado campus). The first few days of hiking in the parks around Boulder are a good way to start breaking the boots in. Chatauqua Park, not far from Neptune's offers a lot of trails and several peaks to hike up.

One other thing about altitude - it takes several days to adjust to altitude, and just a couple days to lose all acclimatization when you come back down to sea level. So the altitude hikes I am suggesting are to see how your body adjusts. Read in MFOTH, as Brian suggested, the chapters on altitude and the various forms of altitude sickness BEFORE you start hiking. You want to recognize the symptoms so you can deal with them (only real cure is head back down to lower altitude immediately).

Thank you for the great reply and advice !!! - from all of yawl.
I will heed it all, and will try to get to Colorado and see what the altidude does to me.
I went and got a frame for my old Alice Pack - I will keep using it till I find a REI or store that can help me with getting a pack.
Do yawl think ~30 to 40 lbs is about the weight I need to work up too?
What brand/type of boots should I be looking at? I have wore Redwing/Wolverine steel toes all my life in the oilfield so I guess I am used to wearing work boots - don't know it that will be a help or not??

Again, thanks for all of the help.
mal....

Bill said, "You will need sturdy hiking boots. Not expedition-type double plastics, but good leather boots."

Seems like if folks are recommended to use light hiking boots, then they could also use a trail running shoe (perhaps sized a tad larger to fit a warm sock)?

See Cameron Burns book on Hiking Shoes of Kilimanjaro.

Cam Burns is a funny guy.

I hear tell of folk doing Kili in sandals. If you're used to a light hiking shoe, instead of a heavier boot, then I'd think about just using that. Of course, my favorite hiking boot was a Redwing high top. Almost cried the day my dog ate them.

I'd only use a boot if you thought you needed the extra support, insulation and/or needed to bolt on a stiff crampon (instead of a lightweight alumimum crampon you could wear over a trail shoe). More weight you save on your feet the better. I've been to over 19k feet in running shoes, and, much rather that than a heavy boot, if you can get away with it.

Bill, and other folks say, "You can add some weight in a pack."

I'm kinda against over training with a bunch of weight in a pack. That wears a person out. As Bridwell says, "don't train suffering". I think it wears out your back, knees, ankles, etc to train with a heavy pack. Most I'd suggest is to carry a gallon or so extra water on the hike up, and pour it out for the hike down.

Best to just get in generally good fitness overall, with weights, etc. Leave carrying a heavy pack to when you have to and just try to avoid it.

Great post on the suggestions, Bill.

-Brian in SLC

Just to expand a bit on my "weight" comment. You won't be carrying much weight on Kili, so, as Brian says, don't try training with a huge, heavy pack. One thing I do is do the uphill with a couple gallon bottles of water, then dump it at the top to save my knees on the way down. Your knees will get more than enough pounding on your real climbs, even with just lunch, water, rain parka, and camera gear. Unless you go with a DSLR plus lots of lenses, you aren't going to have more than 15-20 pounds. You won't need the long, heavy telephoto on the mountain, and on your photo-safari, if you go on one, you will be in a Land Rover and not carrying all the lenses.

One thing I find about trail running shoes is that I get a lot of dust through the mesh. I do use them a lot for local training hikes, or sometimes for the 35 miles in a day hikes that the "Day Hikes Section" of the local Sierra Club chapter goes on. I'm only carrying 5-10 pounds at most, and mostly water, and I have stronger ankles than most. I guess I should have clarified about my "sturdy leather boots" comment. I did not mean the old-style heavy mountaineering boots. What Brian is referring to as light hikers provide plenty of support for the kind of hike you will get on Kili. But there are boots sold as light hikers that have a fairly coarse mesh and let a lot of dust in, and are not waterproof for stream crossings (Goretex-lined in my experience may be somewhat waterproof, but they breathe so poorly that my sweaty feet have the socks soaked as much at the end of the day that they might as well have been a coarse mesh). I prefer an all-leather upper that I can waterproof with something like Biwell, but still breathes and is quite light-weight.

But trail running shoes (I have been using Adidas Supernovas for a couple years) can work just fine if there isn't much dust or water to wade through. And they do not require breaking in, if you get them fit properly at the start.

Like packs, boots are very much a matter of individual taste.

I hiked Kili about 2 years ago and I live in Austin, Texas. I guess the better physical shape that you are in the more enjoyable it will be. It is really a very slow climb for 3 and 1/2 days and 1/2 a night of steep ascent. Climbing stairs is good prep.

You will not need a heavy pack. You can bring a duffle for your clothes if you like or a regular backpack. The porters will carry your main pack on their heads. All that you will need is a small pack to carry your daily water, snacks, camera and rain gear. I would recommend hiking with your small pack with about 5 pounds of gear. If you want to you also might try hiking in the rain with your gear because when you're wet it will add perhaps 3 to 4 pounds. I used a camelback hog and packed some things like snacks in my jacket. I would not recommend ultalight trail running shoes. I hiked with light/medium hiking boots like the vasque sundowner series or llbean cresta . At the top there is snow so having a little more protection worked out great. I recommend medium weight wool or synthetic socks. My friend used light weight hikers and his feet got cold and wet. There's an REI in Houston on Westheimer and they can hook you up with all your gear.

The hike can last 5 or 6 days depending if you use a day in the middle to acclimatize. I would recommend it.

I don't believe that there is any training that you can do to adjust to the altitude. You can train in a higher altitude a week or two before your trip to build up your red blood cells, but there is no guarantee. Different people react differently. You can take medicine that will help you acclimatize. I forget what the medicine is called, but I'm sure that if you look it up you'll find it.

The most important thing to remember is to eat and sleep the evening before your ascent so that you will have energy. Even if you don't feel like eating you should eat at least some energy bars.

You may buy a light/midwieght rain parka and pants, but I would also recommend a cheap $4 poncho as rain protection because it will also cover your pack.

Other stuff that came in handy was a headlight, trekking poles (can be rented there for $5), clif energy bars (or ones that will not freeze, decent gloves and a hat.

If you use a camelback be sure to purchase a tube insulator. Uninsulated water bottles will freeze on the night of the ascent. My friend did the cheap alternative and created insulation with a plastic bag and duct tape. He left one inch exposed and on the night of the summit his tube froze. We had to share water for the summit from my supply, thus cutting in half my supply.

Good luck, I'm sure that you can do it.

Cheers,

Troy