Kili is like the Abi: you prepare for it for a long time. You go over every detail again and again. You think: what if? You spend every spare minute training for it. And then? Zero euphoria. But a headache. So 5895 metres altitude feels like a damn gin and tonic hangover! Neither your brain nor your legs are able to shift up into third gear. Every movement happens as if in slow motion. The outside world is slow to penetrate my centre of perception: Up here, on the dusty plateau of Uhuru Peak, crowds of people are bustling about. Everywhere there are pats on the back, hugs, photos being taken as proof. I can't manage to count the number of climbers in hiking boots, but I know there are seven of us mountain bikers. In the Alps, a cross would mark the summit at this point. Up here, we are standing in front of a kind of wooden board wall that provides information about all of the mountain's superlatives: "Africa's highest point", "World's highest freestanding mountain", "One of the world's largest volcanoes". It all sounds great. What's missing is the euphoria.
A year earlier, Lukas called: "Guess which peak I'm standing on right now!" my Swiss bike specialist Lukas Stöckli wanted to know. No idea - Großer Arber, Zugspitze, Matterhorn? "No, on Kilimanjaro! It's so cool up here, you absolutely have to come next year!" There wasn't enough air for more back then. But his few words resonated with me. I had always wanted to climb the highest mountain in Africa. But for a long time it was said that you couldn't get a permit to go there on a bike. I must have missed the fact that this regulation was changed. I googled my way through tour reports from hikers, tried to translate the described ascent routes into chainring turns and possibly painful carrying passages. I dreamed of spending the night under the African starry sky. In other words: I knew this mountain long before he got to know me. My call to Lukas was just a formality: "All right, Luki, I'll come with you next time. I'm giving myself the Kili tour for my 50th birthday!"
Probably the longest MTB descent on the planet
For five years now, mountain bikers have also been allowed to climb Africa's highest mountain, one of the "Seven Summits". It is a solitary block that rises out of the Tanzanian steppe and still wears a hairstyle of white glacier ice. For bikers, its summit is the highest destination in the world and the descent is the longest possible on this planet: downhill from 5895 to 1400 metres in one go. You can't give yourself a better birthday present than that. So that I don't have to celebrate alone on the mountain, I joined bike guide Luki and his group of bikers.
Also taking part are: Ueli, a bike guide from Switzerland, Roman, who looks like he can bend steel pipes, Rebecca from Pott, bike mountaineer Esther and Dani, a banker from Liechtenstein. Our guide boss on the mountain is called Richard. A Maasai who has been guiding tourists up Kili for many years and now also guides a handful of mountain bikers every year. But Richard doesn't guide us alone. He has hired 40 porters for our group of seven.
The trick is: Don't gain altitude as quickly as possible, but as slowly as possible - otherwise you won't make the summit. - Richard, our chief guide on Kilimanjaro
Six days of nothing but uphill. Admittedly: At first, I felt bad that the locals were lugging our tent, evening clothes, a garage-sized group tent and two toilet tents (including a chemical toilet), as well as food and drink, up the mountain for a week, while we only had a half-filled 16-litre rucksack on our shoulders. But on the second day I realise that those who work on Kili earn good money. So much in a week that a family of many can live on it for a month. So this mountain is much more than the biggest block in Africa. It is an employer for hundreds of people.
Our first major interim destination is the Kibo Hut at an altitude of 4,700 metres. And we reach it on the new rescue road. You can ride almost anything on the gravelled rescue road, which is even concreted on steep ramps. Even if the ramps are anything but fun as the altitude increases and the air becomes noticeably thinner. Unfortunately, the Kibo hut is rather uninhabitable for effete Westerners. This is one reason why Richard has a separate tent carried up here for each of his guests. "Between 80 and 90 per cent reach the hut on foot," says Luki. Thanks to Richard's ingenious logistics and acclimatisation tactics, most of them make it to the top. "Pole, pole!", we hear our chief guide shout again and again during the six-day ascent. Because only those who take it slowly, slowly, have a real chance of reaching the summit on Kili. Of the 30,000 hikers a year, who often rush up here much faster, only a third seem to make it to the top.
The body needs time to adapt to the pressure, which is only half as high at the summit of Kilimanjaro as it is at sea level. The trick is: Not to gain altitude as quickly as possible, but as slowly as possible.
On Luki's advice, I even fitted a 28 mm chainring, which almost forces me into a snail's pace. Richard has made a special diversions for us. This way we don't get in the way of the many hikers and spend an extra night in the tent at an altitude of 4400 metres. Headaches flare up from time to time, but the level of exhaustion is limited. The others feel the same way when we all finally reach the surreal summit world. Five kilometres above the African steppe with the 200,000-inhabitant town of Moshi, where we started six days ago. However, we are looking down on a sea of clouds. Straight ahead is the gigantic summit crater of the volcanic mountain. The Southern Icefield is also close enough to touch. The thirty metre high and several hundred metre long glacier cube on black lava sand is still defying climate change here.
The ascent to Kilimanjaro: 6 days - the descent: 6 hours
But my head is now raging with a gin and tonic hangover and I'm glad that we make our way down after half an hour. After all, we're only halfway to the summit. Hikers need two days for the descent, mountain bikers six hours. From Uhuru Peak, it's a fairly breathless ride on a flat, pitch-black lava track to the crater rim at Gilman's Point and from there down to the Kibo hut on rough hairpin bends. Apart from 100 metres down, everything is rideable, but it is the dustiest 1200 metres down that I have ever experienced. Our porters and cooks are waiting for us at the Kibo Hut with applause, pancakes and porridge.
My headache is blown away. Dragging plumes of sand behind us, we fly down the remaining 3300 metres to Marangu in one go. Just below the first camp in the jungle, the locals have even laid a ten-kilometre single trail for bikers around the trees. After the longest descent of my life, through all of Africa's climate zones, we reach the noisy, colourful town of Marangu at two o'clock in the afternoon. Now I can feel the euphoria - it's bubbling through all my nerves!
Info about Kilimanjaro
The mountain
Kilimanjaro is a freestanding mountain massif near the border between Tanzania and Kenya. Its 5895 metre high summit consists of three volcanic craters and a dwindling glacier field. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site many years ago, mountain biking was forbidden for a long time. But for a few years now, bikers have also been allowed to tackle Africa's highest peak.
The tour: a total of 160 km and 7600 metres in altitude
The route is not difficult in principle, but it goes to high altitudes. A good level of fitness is important, but good acclimatisation is crucial for reaching the summit.
The driveway Thanks to the topography of the mountain and the wide Rescue Road, the "Kilema Route" from Marangu (1420 m) to the Kibo Hut (4700 m) can be ridden at up to 90 per cent. After the unrideable 1000 metres in altitude to the crater rim at Gilman's Point (5681 m), strong (and well-acclimatised) bikers can crank all the way up to Uhuru Peak (5895 m).
The stages
- Day 1: Marangu (1420 m) - Jungle Camp (2900 m):
21 km/1500 m ascent - Day 2: Jungle camp - Horombo hut (3700 m):
6 km/850 m ascent - Day 3: Horombo Hut - Zebra Rocks (4000 m) - Horombo Hut:
5 km/350 m - Day 4: Horombo Hut - Mawenzi Camp (4400 m):
15 km/1000 m ascent - Day 5: Mawenzi Camp - Kibo Hut (4700 m) - Hans Meyer Cave (5220 m) - Kibo Hut: 12 km/1000 m ascent
- Day 6: Kibo Hut - Uhuru Peak (5895 m) - Marangu (1420 m):
48km/1250 m/4500 tm
The descent: The 48-kilometre descent is easy and flowing, with the exception of an unrideable rock bar (approx. 100 metres in depth). From Gilman's Point to the Kibo hut, steep, wide gravel bends await (S2), then it's flat over the huge high plateau to the Horombo hut (S1). From here, you fly endlessly downhill to Marangu on well-maintained (!) jungle trails (S2) and fast gravel.
Guiding
Individual mountain bike tours are still prohibited in the national park. However, some European organisers now offer guided tours. We did the tour with former World Cup racer and Swiss bike guide Lukas Stöckli. He has been offering the highest bike mountain with the longest descent in the world as a guided tour for four years now.
But you have to be quick for the next date: 29 September - 9 October 2024.
Price incl. overnight stay in a tent, guiding and full board: 5490 euros, flight extra.
Further information and registration: lukasstoeckli.ch
