Anyone who has ever attempted Kilimanjaro comes back with a sense of gratitude and intense admiration for the porters who really make it possible for most of us to even consider the expedition. These local Tanzanians have made it their livelihood to take pretty much everything for us up the mountain for anything between 5 to 8 days so that we can trek to the top comfortably and experience what it’s like to stand on the roof of Africa, the tallest freestanding mountain on the planet and one of the 7 summits of the world.

These porters and guides, typically ill equipped as compared to most of the clients they assist, wake up before the rest of us, prepare breakfast, bring our warm water washing buckets, pack up our tents after we’ve left, pass us on the trail, set up our tents before we arrive, make sure we’ll always well fed, look after us if we’re ill, literally carry sum of us to the summit and do it all with the most genuine smile.

Although we can often be quick to dismiss their own struggle as being something they are surely used to or being paid for, but every mountaineer knows that altitude does not see physical strength, skin color or even experience. Altitude is altitude and it affects the clients on the mountain just as it affects the guides and porters. True, the more experienced are better positioned to recognize and manage symptoms, but it makes the whole experience no less challenging. In this episode of Talking Outdoors we chat with Stephen Asseno, the head of the Kilimanjaro Syndicate of Guides and former porter, about his experiences on the mountain, what it’s like to live a life at altitude and how it affects his wellbeing, his motivations and the family he leaves behind every time he is called to the gate of Mount Kilimanjaro.

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