Yay! It's snowing on Mt. Kilimanjaro
The simple fact there was snow during the high season (which is this month and next) for climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro was enough to warrant a front-page feature in this week's travel section of the New York Times. Seeing the white-capped summit--the highest in Africa--is just part of a growing trend of "see it while it's still there" tourism, which Aaron wrote about a few weeks ago.Anyways, it turns out there was "several weeks of heavy rain and snow" right before the writer showed up. By the way, this was during last January, so perhaps our readers can update us on whether there's any snow left this January. One of the Tanzanian guides on the trip had this to say about global warming at Mt. Kilimanjaro, "When I first started climbing, we had big snow, big glaciers. The glaciers were bigger and taller than now. And also, the weather changed. We had heavier rain than we have now."
But here's the trouble about climbing the summit to appreciate the mythic glaciers and snow-caps. On the writer's trip, there were 11 American climbers, 3 Tanzanian guides, and 38 porters and cooks. That's a rather big carbon footprint, dont'cha think?
If you're still up for the trip, and I don't blame you if you are, we've written about the logistics of getting there and picking a climbing outfit here.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jan 22nd 2008 @ 8:20PM
Brooks said...
Are you suggesting that porters and cooks have a significant carbon footprint? What, is it a methane issue or something?
That certainly is a large staff-to-tourist ratio, but I can't imagine that leaving 10 of the porters at home, at the very base of the mountain, would save any carbon emissions at all. Am I missing something?
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Feb 23rd 2008 @ 11:11AM
Strong said...
READ THE NOAA REPORT-U.S. NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION'S REPORT RE "GLOBAL WARMING."
"...ALMOST ALL THE ICE ALLEDGEDLY LOST HAS COME BACK. THE ICE LEVELS WHICH WHICH HAD SHRUNK FROM 5 MILLIONSQUARE MILS IN JANUARY 2007 TO 1.5 MILLION SQUARE MILES IN OCTOBER, 2007, ARE ALMOST BACK TO THEIR ORIGINAL LEVELS--IN 3 MONTHS."
ANOTHER "INCONVENINT TRUTH" MR. ALGORE (ONE WORD-LESS HOT BREATH TO POLLUTE THE ATMOSPHERE.)
Reply
Feb 23rd 2008 @ 11:11AM
Strong said...
READ THE NOAA REPORT-U.S. NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION'S REPORT RE "GLOBAL WARMING."
"...ALMOST ALL THE ICE ALLEDGEDLY LOST HAS COME BACK. THE ICE LEVELS WHICH WHICH HAD SHRUNK FROM 5 MILLIONSQUARE MILS IN JANUARY 2007 TO 1.5 MILLION SQUARE MILES IN OCTOBER, 2007, ARE ALMOST BACK TO THEIR ORIGINAL LEVELS--IN 3 MONTHS."
ANOTHER "INCONVENINT TRUTH" MR. ALGORE (ONE WORD-LESS HOT BREATH TO POLLUTE THE ATMOSPHERE.)
Reply
May 8th 2008 @ 11:45AM
Climbing Kilimanjaro said...
Kilimanjaro is best experienced in small groups (6 or less). As the author pointed out the number of support staff per climber is very high, making for a crowd at camp. But the pros of this ratio are that Tanzanians have jobs and it makes the climb safer/easier for clients, most of whom have no high altitude trekking experience.
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