Home Machame 7-Day Standard via Stella Point

Safety Equipment & Training:

• Oxygen for emergency use – For groups of 5+, two kits (400L medical oxygen bottles, each with a regulator & 2 nasal canula masks) are provided.
• Hyperbaric Chamber – a portable altitude chamber, for emergency use
• Automated External Defibrillator (optional on most treks) – Included on treks with a night in Crater Camp
• Stretcher – Converts into a rigid steel-framed litter
• First-aid / trauma & medicine kit – fully stocked as per Wilderness First Responder guidelines, with medicine instructions.
• Pulse-oximeter – The head guide checks and charts these numbers daily at dinner time, for each climber.
• Climbing helmets – for all climbers and staff (on Western Breach only)
• Ice axes – carried by all guides, for cutting steps in snow (on Western Breach only)
• Mobile phones – carried by all guides, for daily communications with our base in Arusha.
• Medical equipment porter stays with the group at all times, to ensure that the safety gear is always nearby and ready to employ
• A safety briefing is performed by the head guide at the second camp on each trek, exhibiting all the safety gear, and its’ use, to ensure the best possible safety response.

Mountain Staff:

trained by an expert on mountaineering techniques setting handlines with reliable anchors, route safety training, rockfall protocol training, and use of ice axe for cutting steps and self-arrest.

• Ratio of one guide for every two guests (on average), to ensure personalized attention.
• Professional cook – trained to the highest standards on a set menu plan accompanied by a detailed recipe book.
• Waiter – and assistant waiter on each trek are trained to expedite the meal service and ensure our climbers’ nourishment is their top priority
• Campsite Manager – ensures not only the best camp location, but also proper setup and breakdown of each camp.
• Porters: A Kilimanjaro climb would not be possible without porters. They are the backbone of all Kilimanjaro expeditions, and long have they been exploited by the tourism industry! However, a change has been happening, and ever so slowly there’s a consciousness rising, both in terms of expectations of the porters and practices of a few tour operators; one that is sure to eventually turn the tide and create fair working conditions for porters on a large scale on Kilimanjaro. The Kilimanjaro Porter’s Assistance Project (KPAP) has been the driving force of this change in attitude and practice for the past 10 years. Based in Moshi, they are a Tanzanian non-governmental organization committed to improving the working conditions of the porters. Adventure Makers Tanzania Ltd is one of the original six members (now over 30 members strong), and we are the leader in creating and affecting change in revolutionizing how Kilimanjaro porters are chosen, outfitted, treated, paid and tipped.

A few of the notable elements of our Kilimanjaro fair porter treatment system:

We (Adventure Makers Tanzania Ltd) ensure that no bribes are ever paid by porters to get work. We choose them by means of a database which tracks all their work and their performance, and which chooses them in a way that fairly distributes the work.

– We go to excessive lengths to uphold weight limits for porter loads (20kg per porter). We carry scales on each trek to ensure that daily, loads are not exceeded, ever.

We have porter welfare officers staffed at the start gates of every trek, to inspect porters and ensure adequate footwear, warm clothing and sleeping gear, plus eye protection, and ensuring that our system of fair porter treatment is truly being practiced.

On the mountain, we have independent ‘monitoring porters’ to give us constant feedback on our fair practice systems.

We give our porters medical treatment due to injury, equal to that for paying trekkers

We pay porters for removing waste left on the mountain by other companies (185 kg of other companies’ waster removed from the Crater Camp by our staff, from June 2012 to March 2013)

Hearty meals provided. A well-fed porter is stronger!

Private vehicle transport for all porters & return transport home at the end of each trek. Most companies only hire porters who are ‘available’ at the gate.

We provide annually professional wilderness first-aid training and language courses for our porters, including all costs (transport, accommodation and meals) during the course duration for all porters.

Furthermore, Adventure Makers Tanzania Ltd are committed to these fair practices, and have an experienced, professional, and passionate team of managers, guides and porter welfare officers to ensure that we are ‘on it’.

We are widely recognized for these efforts by everyone, including the most important segment of the population; the porters! Because of our commitment to fair practices, we’ve attracted the most reliable, strongest, friendliest and most dependable porters available.

Camping equipment:

• Mountain Hardwear Trango 3.1 sleeping tents (a triple tent used as a double tent or single tent (with supplement)
• All sleeping tents have custom-made ground sheets covering the both vestibules, to allow clean & dry storage of gear, and keeping water, mud or dust from entering the tent.
• Cold-weather sleeping mats (closed cell foam) which cover the entire floor of the sleeping tent, ensuring that you (and all your gear) stays dry throughout the climb.
• Large custom-designed and fabricated weatherproof dining tents with fly sheet, four doors, windows and ventilation, and full floors with storm skirt and ropes.
• Wash stands provided for washing hands before each meal, with fresh hand-towels provided for each climber, before each meal
• Wash basins provided for each trekker.
• We adhere strictly to ‘Leave No Trace’ principles, as we are a current official outfitting partner of LEAVE NO TRACE.
• Hot water prepared for climber’s bottles at night
• We purify all our climbers’ and staff drinking water using the PUR packet. Please visit the following website which describes (and demonstrates) the product we are providing for

purification of all drinking water for all our Kilimanjaro clients and staff:

• We offer high quality rental gear/ trekking clothing like synthetic sleeping bags, Gore-Tex outer wear, warm layers, trekking poles, etc…
• Luxury sleeping tent (optional) features a ‘walk-in’ tent with aluminum frame beds & soft foam mattresses, allowing trekkers to sleep off the ground. At night, powerful solar LED lights light the tent. This 12’x 9’ tent features four entrances, ventilation ports, a fly sheet and storm skirt & storm ropes.
• Hot showers (optional) Complete with a spacious rectangular framed tent, with a 15-liter solar shower bag perched on the top, shower mat and plenty of clothes hooks, plus bath towels.
• Mess tent heater (optional) Small propane space heaters are provided for warming up the mess-tent before and during dinner-time, which we burn for 2-3 hours per evening.

Mountain Cuisine

• Three hearty meals a day + snacks upon arrival in the huts. Our menus have been developed by a professional Italian cook who has trained staff in up-market safari bush camps where equipment and resources are minimal. We produce and prepare a majority of our food in our base kitchen, for delicious and energizing meals necessary for high altitude mountain trekking.
• Trail snacks – including dried fruit, energy bars, and chocolates
• Menu training is constant, and each climb travels with a set recipe book written in kiswahili, laminated with photos of each dish of each meal. These measures ensure that standards stay high, and we always are constantly monitoring for quality and consistency of produce as we are the Best.
• Leave No Trace Outfitting Partner – We are committed to LEAVE NO TRACE environmental standards, and as an official LNT partner (see www.LNT.org) we make sure that we do not leave behind any trash or food waste, or solid human waste at any campsite or anywhere along the trail. In April 2013 all our mountain guides attended a privately organized LNT workshop, to ensure that we practice these standards.
• Carbon Neutral: We purchase carbon credits for every trekker we take up Kilimanjaro, in official partnership with Carbon Tanzania. See: www.carbontanzania.com. These payments account for well documented forestry activities that reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.