mnt killi route and a bad knee

I don't think it will make much of a difference to your knee since both routes require a similar climb and descent on summit day. If you don't like crowds you've picked the wrong trails - these are the two most popular trails on the mountain. Other than the Summit day descent your knww won't be subjected to too much downhill stress.

Machame. Marangu is called the Coca Cola trial for a reason.

A seven day trip may give you more time. The descent was rushed for me as well--my knees were OK, but my feet were bloody.

Hi,

Which transport are you gonna use

If you are trying the Machame route make sure its a 7 day one - this route is very hard on days 3 and 4 (7 to 9 hrs depending upon traffic) if you are on the 6 day program. If you can try to get a 6 day Rongi trek - is less crowded - up to the summit - the return trek is via the Marangu (you will be camping in tents both up and down). Whilst the Marangu has the name as the coca- cola route you still have to walk the 65 km and climb the 4000 metres from the Park Gate. Take it steady, use the walking poles and you should make it. Good luck Orion_Mike

Hi
I did the Machame route with a bad knee. Going up was not too bad but the decent was killing me. Took forever, i reached the summit at about 7 am and didn´t make it down to the camp for the night till after 7 pm. But it was worth it!!! Don´t know about the Marngu rute other than I´ve heard that it´s easier going up that route.

Deb - you should look into the 7-day Rongai route, descent on Marangu route. It's considered an easy route and will not be crowded on the way up.

Definitely use trekking poles and ask your porters to carry nearly all of your stuff on the way down. The descent is brutal on knees/thighs.

Hi! I just went via Machame...

I do reccomend you to think because coming down REALLY killed my knees too. I took so long to decend and i heard Rongai is much easier. I also highly reccomend you to shop around but DO NOT USE small companies, because the structure in the mountain is very important. I used Marangu Hotel, and highly reccomend them.

Good luck with your knees....

machame is much more beautiful and relatively less transited than marangu. do it in 7 days, so that you have enough time to acclimatize your system and less stress for your knee. as a general suggestion, make sure you have good cushion with your hiking boots and wrap your knee with a bandage... keep it warm. Make very small steps on the descent and never go straight, but rather go zig-zag to diminish the incline. another thing that helps, is to descend diagonally, which means not pointing your toes directly in front of you. pretend you're wearing skies and go down with your feet parallel to each other and pointing either to your right or left. never make big jumps and never stretch a step too long: this is what will kill your knee. if you make short steps very low-impact based, you should be a lot better.

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