Hans Meyer: The first foreigner to reach Mt Kilimanjaro peak

The Chagga people indigenous to the area referred to Kilimanjaro as the cold. It should be noted that before European arrivals, the locals were already utilising the mountain and its rainforest to gather honey, and food, hunt the monkeys for their skin and hunted the forest elephants for their tusks which were sold to Swahili traders by the coast.

In the striving business at the time, several local men made attempts to top further up the mountain, notably Yahani Kinyala Lauwo a young boy from the Marangu army scouts. It is recorded that he made several attempts to climb the mountain as he was figuring out the glaciers around the summit. His expedition was known by his community, part of the reason when the European explorer Has Meyer requested for permission to climb the mountain from the Chagga chief, his advisors (wachili) chose Lauwo to be his lead guide.

In 1848 the first Europeans laid their eyes on the breathtaking mountain and the word spread across the mountaineers in Europe shifting there was a race to see who would conquer the mountain. Several bold attempts were made, 1861 Prussian officer Karl Klaus Von Der Decken alongside English geologist Richard Thornton braced the bone-piercing cold winds to try to make it to the top of the mountain but at 8,200 feet, their journey came to an end, Von Decken would later make another trial to the top of Kilimanjaro, this time with a different partner, the German geographer Otto Keratin, their ascent stopped at 13,780 feet as they could no longer go any further.

The conditions today’s climbers are facing are nothing like the harsh bitter cold and dangerous terrain, mountaineers had to face 150 years ago, back then the Kilimanjaro rain forest was home to dangerous animals that would mean certain death to climbers, and the slopes were elephants’ grazing areas, the leopards were roaming freely so did the wild dogs and other animals.

Today on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, there is little evidence of wild animals that could put the climbers' lives in danger. The mountaineers had to deal with thick rainforests with no clear paths to the summit, and in most cases, they had to find a new route to the top of the mountain, this became a tedious and dangerous job that cost time and manpower.

What hindered all the climbers was discovered to be food supply, the dwindling amount of food the further the climbers climbed up was the main reason many of the explorers failed to summit, it would take years of research, and multiple failures for Meyers to discover this and find a way to have reliable food supply for his team to succeed in summiting the mountain.

Scientific studies have documented Kilimanjaro has lost more than 80 percent of its snow, publication on National Geographic (NG) puts it at 90 percent of snow lost due to climate change and human behaviour, but in the 1880s Kilimanjaro climbers walked in paths of as much as 300 feet deep snow, in his book Meyers writes that he had to make stairs out of ice as he was climbing the mountain to reach the snow cap.

In his oral documentation, Lauwo spoke of finding a dead leopard frozen in the mountain. Many mountaineers had to abort their missions due to a lack of proper gear to charter their paths through the snow and appropriate warm clothes to protect them from the cold.

In 1887 the Hungarian Samuel Teleki fell victim to the harsh conditions Mount Kilimanjaro presented, his efforts could only take him to 17,400 feet. Meyer who eventually became the first European to summit the mountain had two failed attempts, the first one was in 1887 choosing Baron Von Eberstein as his fellow mountaineer to embark on the journey with. At 18,00 ft, his equipment proved inferior and infrequent to cut through the snow and ice and he had to face the disappointment and turned back.

His patience was thin, and the next year, in 1888 he made another attempt choosing to dump the first climbing partner and choosing Oscar Baumann, a fellow geologist as the climbing mate, their attempt was during a deadly revolt against the colonisers, and caught between the war, Meyer and Baumann proved to be a necessary bargaining chip for the Abushiri fighters, who captured them and demanded ransom for their release and after it was paid to the rebel leader Abushiri bin Salim, the two were let go.

Meyer had acquired much-needed knowledge and experience, undeterred by his failures he made calculated plans to make another bold attempt to summit the highest mountain in Africa. The race to the top wasn’t only his for the taking. American naturalist Dr Abbott also strapped his boots and with the support of German explorer Otto Ehrenfried, they trekked their way to the top of Kilimanjaro.

Their bold attempts raised more questions and controversies than praise, many were not convinced when Dr Abbott claimed to have stepped his foot to the top of the mountain, upon constant pressure to prove his story which had many holes in it, he apologized and recanted his claim to have summited Mt Kilimanjaro.

In 1889 Meyer felt he was ready for the challenge to summit the indomitable Kilimanjaro, but he had become wiser and sought the help of experienced Austrian mountaineer Ludwig Purtscheller, whose record of climbing the Alps caught the ears of Meyer, Purtscheller was known as an independent, resourceful and fearless climber, and Meyer approached him with the enticing proposition to conquer the African giant and so begun Meyer’s third attempt.

This time around he sought the permission of the Chagga chief and fate would have it that a local mountaineer Lauwo would accidentally be chosen to lead their way to the top. Lauwo had been dodging recruitment to build the railway and was summoned to the chief to answer to the accusation, but his Kilimanjaro exploits were sort of a local legend and when the chief’s advisors (Wachili) saw him at the time of Meyer’s arrival at the palace, he was chosen to lead the European climbers. Lauwo who lived to be 125-years-old, claimed to have summited Kilimanjaro several times before meeting Meyer, he said to have been covered by just a blanket to protect himself from the cold while climbing the mountain.

Meyer armed with the knowledge of his two failures, set up three camps that would serve as food supply, so he didn’t have to descend much lower for his resupply, the camps were located at 12,980 ft, 14,210 ft, and the third one was located 15,260 ft.

His team comprised Lauwo as their guide, Mwini Amani as the head chef, and porters Elia Minja, Tema Mosha, Makella Lymo, and Mamba Kowera.

The strategy was brilliant, Amani would cook and supply the higher camps with food, water, and firewood, so when the team’s food supply ran out, they wouldn’t need to go down a long distance to restock.

This proved a missing piece and on October 9 after starting their ascent on September 27th, Lauwo, Meyer, and Ludwig reached the summit. In his book Meyer wrote of the moment, he remembers having the German flag in his pocket, which he took out and planted on the snow that covered the Kilimanjaro top, they did three cheers for the German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm, the peak would be named after him but in 1964 it was renamed ‘Uhuru’ peak, the Kiswahili word for ‘freedom.’

Meyer would later recount his exploits in his book ‘Across East African Glaciers,’ The 404 paged book was the first elaborate account by a European of his ascent of Kilimanjaro that served as a siren to European adventure seekers who flocked Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro and forever changed the Mountain tourism in the country.

Yohani, their Tanzanian lead guide born in 1872 would live to 1996 and join his ancestors at the age of 125. By the time he was 100 years old, the Tanzania Park Authority gifted him a modern home that he lived in.

Yohani was a celebrated climber and a guide who taught young Tanzanian guides and led the Kilimanjaro expedition till he was 70 years old when he did his final ascent. It should be noted Africans’ history was much more oral, so documentation of their Kilimanjaro summit was not documented.

The world should credit Meyer as the first European to summit Kilimanjaro with the guide of Yohani who later in his life said to have summited the mountain several times before meeting the European explorers.