Climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, 1985 |
 Most of the first day’s hike from the Marangu Gate to the Mandara huts is through the montane forest zone, which has an average of 1,800 millimetres / 70 inches of rain per year. In their book, Journey Through Tanzania, Mohammed Amin, Duncan Willetts, and Peter Marshall note that the forest “is a mass of great trees – camphor, cedar, juniper, olive and pillar – many twisted into fantastic shapes and festooned with lianas, mosses and lichens. Luxurious foliage forms a dense canopy, and only occasionally sunshine breaks through to dapple the ferns and bushes of the thick undergrowth.” |