What is a good hydration system for hiking Kilimanjaro?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 28 Jul, 2023
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Camalbacks are great for trecking, but they have two problems when climbing Kilimanjaro.
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At high altitudes drinking from the tube can leave you breathless as the time spent drinking while walking is time that you aren’t breathing. This sounds surprising but it does make a difference with the low oxygen levels.
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On the summit day, the water in your camalback tube will freeze, and won’t defrost until after you have submitted. Making the camalback pretty much useless. Waterbottles will be fine in that temperature.
This said, I would still highly recommend a camalback for the little sips as you are walking to save having to get the bottle out your backpack and open it each time you have a drink. Two 1 litre bottles and a 3 litre camalback sounds about perfect.
Don’t worry too much about sterilizing the water, it will be boiled for long enough for you.
I just got back from climbing Kilimanjaro, and we used a SteriPEN to purify our water. It’s very small and easy to carry, and it only takes a minute to purify a liter of water (you basically just have to stir). It cost us $90 and was definitely worth it, considering how awful iodine tablets make your water taste.
As for amount of water, I carried 3L each day and was totally fine. On summit day we didn’t have any trouble with the water freezing. We didn’t have insulated water bottles, so we packed the water inside our backpacks and put clothes around them, and it worked fine. A few other people on our trek used camel backs and I think had more trouble with the straw freezing than we had with our water bottles.
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There are three methods to purify your water: boil, chemically treat or filter or a combination of them.
Your guides will boil water for you, so you should not need to chemically treat the water they give you. However, if you are unsure about the water you get, you are free to do additional purification. MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop) has a nice article on water purification.
Here is a refined search of some of their water purification product.
Except for the last day of the summit, the temperature should not be low enough for water to freeze. However, on the last day of the summit the temperature can get well below freezing, so you should have an insulated bottle for this part. If you carry a camelback, the water in the tube will also freeze if it’s not insulated.
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