A Warm-up Climb: Mt Hanang

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. John Muir 

 
Out of the many things to do whilst staying in Haydom, climbing Mt Hanang should be on ever visitor's to do list. The Mt Hanang trek is often used by many as a warm-up climb to Mt Kilimanjaro. However, Mt Hanang is not merely a warm-up trek, it readily offers up its' own unique scenery and experience.

A bit of information about Mt Hanang. Mt Hanang is the fourth highest mountain in Tanzania at 3,418m. It is located in the Manyara region, with the town of Katesh lying at it's base. Tours to Mt Hanang are currently organsied by Elisha (who nearly everyone meets on the first day) in Haydom.

Getting to Mt Hanang
Myself and four girls (two Danes and two Norwegians – and yes I'm a lucky man) left from Haydom on a friday afternoon at four to begin our journey to the town of Katesh. The drive takes roughly 2 hours, and is actually in my opinion, on one of the better roads in Tanzania. Our driver was Anom, who works as the information officer for the hospital. You'll find in Tanzania, everyone has a second business, a farm or something. In fact, the hospital's semi-retired radiologist Dr Naman even owns a bar, simply called Dr Namans. But I digress.

The Trek
The next day, the team consisting of myself, Thea, Anna-sofia, Christine, Anne-kine and Elisha (our guide) got up in the early hours of the morning (5:30am) in preparation for our climb. Traditionally, the car takes you from the town of Katesh to the start of the climb at 2000m above sea level. Unfortunately for us it had been raining the whole night before, which meant that the roads where largely impassable. So we started a bit lower, with an extra hour of walking time, before we even reached the starting point.

From there it was a day of progressively climbing up hill, with sunshine, rain, fog and everything in between. The fog was particularly beneficial in the morning, as it helped not being able to see how far we had to climb up. On the way up a few of the team members did suffer some mild symptoms of Altitude Sickness, so be warned. Roughly 6 hours after starting our walk, we finally reached the summit, and enjoyed the spectacular views that were given to us.

The trek is a mixture of climbing through forests, low lying scrub and rocky outcrops. There aren't many animals, but the scenery is always offering up something new. The difficulty of the climb can be quite variable, but is definitely made more challenging if there has been recent rain. No mountain trekking experience required, but you should be reasonable physically fit.

That is a short summary of my Mt Hanang experience.