Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Kilimanjaro, one of the Seven Summits

According to Wikipedia, "The Seven Summits are the highest mountains of each of the seven continents

Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first postulated as such in the 1980s by Richard Bass"

At this point in time, we have no ambition to summit all 7, but just out of curiosity and for further information, these are the 7 Summits Facts:

In order of height:

Asia
Everest (Sagarmatha or Chomolungma)
8848m or 29029ft

South America
Aconcagua
6962m or 22841ft

North America
Mount McKinley (Denali)
6194m or 20320ft

Africa
Kilimanjaro (Kibo Summit)
5895m or 19341ft

Europe
Elbrus
5642m or 18510ft

Antarctica (claimed by Chile)
Vinson Massif
4892m or 16050ft

Australia-New Guinea
Carstensz Pyramid (Puncak Jaya)
4884m or 16024ft

Australia
Kosciuszko
2228m or 7310ft


I just wanted to add a little snippet (also from the aforementioned wiki-page) titled: Criticism of the Seven Summits challenge

"... who argue that it tempts the ambitious but inexperienced into paying large sums to professional guides who promise the "seven", and that the guides are therefore pressured to press on toward summits even to the detriment of their clients' safety"

This has been apparent in our experience, particularly at the level of buying kit - where the shop assistant hears " we're climbing Kili" (or, actually they hear "$$$$$$") and instead of relying on getting good advice you have to be careful to weed out the knowledgeable from the greedy.

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