Safety in Tanzania

Kilimanjaro Safety

Safety on Kilimanjaro – Our Number one priority

One of the Seven Summits, Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa, and at 19,341 ft, the summit falls into the “extreme altitude” mountaineering category. It’s one of the few mountains of this size that requires no technical skill to reach the summit.

It should not be underestimated. Trekking at altitude in a remote location can be dangerous, and every year it’s estimated over 1,000 people are evacuated from the mountain and sadly, some never return to their families.

Key factors affecting your safety on Kilimanjaro:

Altitude sickness and altitude-related complications
Remote location
Experience and training of your guides
The right equipment for dealing with an emergency
Robust monitoring and evacuation processes and protocols

How We Work to Keep You Safe on Kilimanjaro

Staying safe on Kilimanjaro starts with understanding the risks and knowing how to mitigate them. We ask all our climbers to fill in a comprehensive medical questionnaire, and in the case of some pre-existing conditions, we may ask for confirmation from your doctor that you are fit to climb. Your guide will need to know any existing medications you are taking (including over the counter) and whether you are taking Diamox to help acclimatization.

You need to know that your guide has the proper training to know how to detect the early signs of altitude sickness, and what to do about it. Our guides undergo Wilderness First Responder training, which teaches essential skills for managing medical conditions in remote locations.

It’s our mission to ensure a safe and successful summit for everyone. We have a guide to climber ratio of 1 to 2, so for every two climbers, we have one trained mountain guide. This allows for more careful observation and evaluation of the group’s condition.

Communication with your guide is important. If you’re feeling under the weather, have a headache, nausea or any other symptom, you must tell your guide. While hiking, your guide will be keeping a lookout for any early signs of trouble:

In the event of an emergency, we use a search and rescue service that operates out of Moshi. After a distress call, a helicopter will be dispatched to the nearest landing point and the patient can be airlifted off the mountain and taken to the local hospital. Of note, in the event of adverse mountain weather, a helicopter may not be able to land, and if this is the case, a manual evacuation will need to take place via a stretcher provided by the National Park.