The Hans Meyer Cave is found on the Kibo peak on the southern side of the Kilimanjaro Mountain. The Kibo peak is the tallest of the three peaks of the Kilimanjaro Mountain.
This cave is south East of the Reusch Crater and it’s a good picnic site while on the Kilimanjaro Mountain. You will rest and energize and acclimatize while you rest here.
The Hans Meyer cave is located at an Altitude of about 5,150 meters above sea level. The cave is about 3 hours away from the Kibo huts. The cave is in the arctic vegetation zone of the Kilimanjaro.
This pace is covered in rocks and ice. The nights usually cold to the extreme and the sun has scotching rays during the day. This area has no life that survives and those small plants that try to grow can’t go beyond.
Navigating past these rocks would require you to take huge steps and caution as they can be slippery and as you approach Gilman’s Point at 5,681m above sea level which is about 5-6 hours away from School Hut, the slope becomes steeper.
On reaching Gilman’s Point towards Stella Point, you will meet a more gradual slope.
In order to reach the summit at Uhuru Peak, climbers are forced to wake up at midnight, a journey that passes through Gilman’s point to Stella Point. You will need another two hours from the Stella Point to the Uhuru Peak.
Hans Meyer
Dr Abbot and Teleki played a pivotal role especially with providing important and necessary information about the conquest of the Kilmanjaro that later helped Han Meyer who was a German geologist and was a son to one of the wealthiest writers in German town of Leipzig.
He has worked for his father and later took over the business. He retired in 1888. In 1887 h had made an attempt to hike the Kilimanjaro but wasn’t successful.
After retiring, he returned in the following year to make a second attempt. He made several attempts before he succeeded in reaching the summit. The final attempt that as successful was with his friend Dr Oscar Baumann.
During this attempt, the timing was really not the best as both Meyer and his friend were captured by the Sheikh Abushiri who was leading that Abushiri revolution that was happening at the time.
They were held hostage until and a ransom of over ten thousand rupees was paid.
Hans Meyer Climb on Kilimanjaro
It was on his third attempt in 1889 that Meyers became the first person to reach the summit of the Kilimanjaro. Meyers was intelligent and discovers that one of the problems why attempts in the pass where not successful is because of the lack of food at the top.
He therefore set up several camps along the way. These Included the Abbot Camp at 3894 meters above sea level, the the Kibo Camp at 4263 meters above sea level and lastly the Lava cave at 4578 meters above sea level.
With these camps, Meyers was able to conduct attempts that later let him to the summit of the Kilimanjaro.
Because the Kilimanjaro was virgin and un tampered with, there was a lot of snow and ice in the 1880s that there is today. It would start from around 4500 meters above sea level and it would snow the entire day.
Most of the hardships that the group faced during the hike are well described in the Book that Meyers wrote on his conquest of the Kilimanjaro. Of course the snow was the biggest factor.
On October 6th 1889, the group managed to reached the highest point of the Kilimanjaro. It’s this day that the Kilimanjaro was finally conquered.
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