Is the price of oxygen tanks included in our climbing fees?

We carry emergency oxygen on Kilimanjaro and medical kits on all climbs. Depending with the tour operator it is vital to ask before. There are tour operators who choose to include the oxygen tanks and those who chose not to. Bottled oxygen is not routinely available on this climb and not included in the price of the trip. The most immediate treatment for serious altitude sickness is rapid descent, which is always possible on Mount Kilimanjaro. Virtually no climbers on the mountain carry oxygen. If upon reaching the final campsite before the ascent your guide judges you to have serious symptoms of altitude sickness, you will not be permitted to attempt the final climb. Oxygen may be available on an emergency basis or at added cost, but not as an aid for climbers who have not acclimatized adequately on their own. Kilimanjaro altitude is a significant challenge, but climbers do not need supplemental oxygen to climb Kilimanjaro or reach the summit. To reach to the summit you use the acclimatization method of walking slowly. The percentage of oxygen in the air is constant at 21% at all altitudes. But at sea level, the weight of the air above compresses the air below, making it denser. As one climbs Kilimanjaro, gaining elevation, the air becomes less compressed and is therefore thinner.

Altitude mountain sickness is dangerous disease which cause death of climbers when climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and the symptoms of altitude mountain sickness begin to arise at high altitude and continue to become more pronounced the higher you go. The cause of acute mountain sickness is not understood but is clearly related to hypoxia and some other factors such as effort and innate susceptibility. Altitude sickness or acute mountain sickness (AMS) is the main cause of fatalities while climbing Kilimanjaro. High altitude pulmonary edema and high altitude cerebral edema are two fatal forms of serious AMS that can strike on the mountain. Kilimanjaro operators are responsible to bring oxygen as a precaution in order to treat climbers who have the symptoms of this dangerous disease which makes climbers to suffer and some other die when their supporter delay to give them first aid.

It is recommended to carry bottled oxygen in an attempt to relieve low oxygen saturation or difficulties breathing to help a climber reach the summit. This can mask the symptoms of a more dangerous condition and can result in altitude related complications later on. But also there are some tour operators companies who advertise the use of a personal oxygen system to provide first aid for climbers who get this disease on Kilimanjaro. The difficulty of Kilimanjaro lies with its altitude as a trek, it is not difficult by hiking standards, if you remove the challenge of high altitude.

Benefits of oxygen to climbers

Supplemental oxygen benefits climbers in two different ways such as
Decreases the altitude that you feel
It helps keep you warm by allowing the blood to flow more freely to the extremities

Using supplemental oxygen increases the percentage of oxygen in the air that you breathe. Body respiratory system depends on the partial pressure of oxygen within the air that we breathe because the higher O2 partial pressure makes it easier for oxygen to be pushed from the lungs into the blood stream and ultimately be used by the muscles to do work. At the summit of Kilimanjaro, there is approximately 49% of the oxygen available at sea level. The percentage blood oxygen saturation, combined with your heart rate, is indicators of how well your body is acclimatizing to the altitude. Acclimatization is best understood by looking at the relationship between oxygen in the air, air density and altitude changes.

As one climbs in altitude the amount of oxygen in the air remains about the same however, air density drops and thus less pressure is put on packing oxygen molecules closer together. With less air density, oxygen molecules are more widely dispersed in any given column of air and hence less oxygen is available per breath. Blood oxygen saturation, the body deals with this decrease in available oxygen by breathing faster and deeper even at rest so as to increase the oxygen content in the blood.

Climbers need oxygen to maintain their body for a prolonged period of time. It is not possible to acclimatize to high altitude particularly above we can however, acclimatize temporarily in order to reach the summit rate of Kilimanjaro. The oxygen is dangerous, unnecessary and against the spirit of climbing Kilimanjaro. But some companies on Kilimanjaro do not offer oxygen because it very expensive. The lack of oxygen it become the big challenge on the mountain because lies within the fact that the summit is at a high elevation, where climbers must adapt to lower oxygen levels at altitude. Using supplementary oxygen is very important to save the life of climbers. However companies which escort older or youngest persons to climb Kilimanjaro their porter must carry oxygen because younger and oldest people their level of acclimatize is always low. You will start to breathe deeper and faster, your blood will thicken as your body produces more red blood cells, and your heart will beat faster. As a result, your essential organs will receive the same level of oxygen as they always did.

Oxygen is most important and almost used on dangerous place like on mountain site. Oxygen is pretty essential to your physical well being. We are survive because of using oxygen to enter air in and also we are using carbon dioxide to move air out through all this process we are survive, we are receiving oxygen via red blood cells which is loaded with oxygen by our lungs and then pumped around our body by our heart. Problems arise at high altitude on mountain and can be solved through the use of oxygen. When the body oxygen reduced on the body our body of organs like the brain, is not getting enough oxygen and malfunctions as a result. Our body is an adaptable on some different weather condition but on mountain there is different area which has different weather condition. Above sea level on 6000meters the Kilimanjaro weather condition is change automatically so climbers they should have enough ability to acclimatize if not there should oxygen on every group of climber’s at least only one oxygen.