Preparations

A few weeks ago I was checking on the seat assignments for our Emirates flights (SFO-Dubai-Nairobi and return) and saw something like 85 rows on the return flight ! Turns out Emirates routed us through JFK instead of SFO and that too on a brand new Airbus 380. Though flying on the 380 seems exciting, adding yet another long flight is most certainly not. We (mostly Susheel) tried to get Emirates to fix this or at least compensate in some other way. No dice. They didn't budge and now we are stuck flying another long flight from JFK to the west coast.

All I can say about Emirates is that I am deeply dissapointed in the airline and had expected a lot more based on its reputation.

Even though the trip to Kili is about 5 months away, I am trying to get the equipment for the climb together. Tusker Trails has sent us a checklist of things that are required for the climb and thanks to the Rainier climb from a couple of years ago I have a lot of these already. Rainier is a 2 day climb with most of it through snow fields and galciers and in general a pretty homogeneous terrain (rocks and snow). On the Kilimanjaro climb it seems to be a much more diverse terrain, with the trek going through savannah, forests, scree and glaciers. A lesson learned from the Rainier climb (and the training hikes leading up to it) was that the footwear is very, very important.

I have a pair of La Sportiva Trango boots which are great in many respects, but I have 2 concerns: 1. size, 2. suitability to all terrain types. The size part is from getting a dead big toe nail while trekking down from Mailbox peak. Previous to the Mailbox hke, even though the boots felt a bit snug, I had not considered them too small for me. However after the dead and broken nail, I decided to go back to REI and try out a larger size. Indeed the larger boot felt better and thanks to REIs incredible exchange policy, I now have the same boot in a larger size. In initial walking around th size seems right.

In terms of suitability to the varied terrain, the Trango is  waterproof (Goretex lining), has a sole that not only provdes adequate cushioning, but also has a great grip and even can take a crampon. However it is a sold as a mountaineering boot and not a hiking boot and so what I am not sure about is how comfortable it will be for hiking over 10 days. From all that I have read it should be OK, time will tell ...

I had assumed that booking tickets for December now in May wouldn't be a big deal. Turns out that I am wrong. Northwest has a flight into Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO) and so I had imagined a long but rather straightforward set of flights from Seattle to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro. This direct flight into JRO is not available around the 22nd (seems as if it is cancelled for the holidays) and so now we will have to fly via Nairobi (NBO). This gets a bit more complicated due to conecting flights and layover times which make leaving on Dec 21 as initially planned difficult and we may have to leave on the 20th instead. I am also considering to fly out to San Francisco where there are more airlines (Virgin, Emirates) leaving for Nairobi, and join Susheel there (instead of meeting up in Amsterdam as initially planned). Tusker has booked flights for us via Nairobi via Northwest Airlines for us right now and Susheel has a travel agent who also is trying to find us a good deal.

In the next couple of days this should be decided and locked down.