Dear Valley Gear For Mount Kilimanjaro Hiking Guides and Porters

Guides and Porters expresss gratitude for life-saving cold weather gear.

Anyone who has ever hiked Mt Kilimanjaro will have a first-hand understanding that being a guide or porter for hikers is an immense employment opportunity for local residents in Tanzania, Africa. In a place where most people live in extreme poverty, and in a culture which does not actively motivate men to work, these men are doing their best to provide a living for themselves and their families.

While popular media often portrays Tanzania as a land of perpetual heat and sun-scorched Savanah plains, the country’s geography is far more nuanced. In reality, Tanzania encompasses a diverse range of climates. This climatic variety is most striking when considering the height of Mt. Kilimanjaro. As one of the tallest free-standing mountains in the world, its massive height creates a “sky island” effect where travelers cross through five distinct ecological zones.

The guides and porters who escort the hikers to the top of the mountain can experience temperatures as cold as -20° Fahrenheit (which can feel like -30° with the wind chill). Each year the low temperatures on the mountain claim the lives of guides and porters. A guide is like the captain of the hiking party. He’s responsible for making sure every hiker is physically well and acclamated for oxygen intake during the climb. Porters help carry the gear. As part of their job they ascend the mountain multiple times a month, sometimes for 7-10 days at a time.

Even if their jobs paid enough for them to acquire the appropriate gear to stay warm (which it doesn’t) they still don’t have access to cold weather gear because it’s not sold in Tanzania.

Connie Harris, one of the founders of Hearts and Hands for Humanity worked at Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah. She approached them about making cold weather gear donations in 2021. They have continually donated enough gear to send a shipment of 4,000 to 6,500 items about every 1 to 3 years. This requires a 20-foot container to ship the items from Utah to Tanzania and the shipping costs about $15,000. These shipments can also contain other donations for various humanitarian efforts in Tanzania. The next shipment is scheduled for the Summer of 2026.

The Testimonials of Independent Hikers: “Something Has To Be Done About This”

After one of the earlier shipments of Deer Valley Gear, we got word of an inspiring story about two hikers who were on Mt Kilimanjaro independent of Hearts and Hands for Humanity; they were not there on one of our Humanitarian Safari trips.

As they were hiking Mt Kilimanjaro they recognized the dangerous situation for the guides and porters who were working in the extreme cold and many of them with only t-shirts. As they discussed this together they determined that something had to be done to protect these hard workers.

As they were descending the mountain and nearing the end of their hike, they recognized many of the guides and porters at the bottom were wearing green coats and cold weather pants. They began to wonder what was going on and as they approached the exit gate at the bottom of the mountain they witnessed a bus with thousands of cold weather gear items being donated to the guides and porters at no cost. It was amazing for these two hikers to see how at the top of the mountain something had to be done to protect the guides and porters from freezing to death, and then arrive at the bottom of the mountain to see that someone was doing something about it.

They noticed the Deer Valley Resort logo on the gear. So while they were visiting the resort on a skiing trip, they shared this story with a resort employee named Allen, who then shared it with us.

Hearts and Hands for Humanity needs your help to provide this life-saving cold weather gear for the hard-working guides and porters on Mt Kilimanjaro. While the gear itself is fully donated by Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah, we still need help to cover the $15,000 shipping costs. Each shipment requires a 20-foot container for shipping 4,000 to 6,500 items. Cold weather gear is not readily available or sold in Tanzania.

If you’d like to provide additional donations of life-saving supplies which can go in the same shipment, and to support other humanitarian efforts in East Africa, please contact us.

Get on a plane and come with us! You can help drill a clean water well with your own heart and hands. Unlike other charties which provide humanitarian work in Africa, Hearts and Hands for Humanity provides an option for donors to actually meet the people they are donating to. You don’t have to donate to some abstract stranger across the ocean that you hope the money will go to. You can go to Africa with us on a Humanitarian Safari and make a real connection with these wonder people of Africa. You’ll see in person the hope and joy that we bring to their lives when we provide them with clean water. It transforms their community and gives them hope for future.

As part of the Humanitarian Safari experience you can spend 1 or 7 days climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, and check off the bucket list item to climb “every man’s Everest” (or woman’s).