KILIMANJARO. THE ROOF OF AFRICA

A British prime minister in Queen Victoria’s England once dismissed Kilimanjaro as “that mountain behind Zanzibar with the unrememberable name.” Today, there can be few who don’t recognize its most beautiful and evocative name. From the literature of Ernest Hemingway, from movies, and from a multitude of images, the world is familiar with the Elysian view of elephants and giraffes grazing against the shimmering backdrop of Kilimanjaro. Floating over the plains of East Africa, more mirage than mountain, Kilimanjaro exudes mystery and romance. At the same time, it is an accessible mountain, drawing more than 20,000 visitors each year to its slopes and snowy dome. The climb up Kilimanjaro has been likened to a journey from the equator to the poles, passing as it does through zone after zone of climatic change, from tropical forest to frozen desert. And Kilimanjaro’s human history is no less rich than its natural history. Close to the cradle of mankind, the mountain has watched history unfold at its foot, from the earliest hunter-gatherers and the scramble of colonization to World War I battles and the wave of independence that swept Africa in the mid-20th century.

In Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa, accomplished mountaineer and writer Audrey Salkeld presents a comprehensive and awe-inspiring portrait of this noble mountain and its myriad facets. To be published in conjunction with the release of David Breashears’s stunning new IMAX® film about Kilimanjaro, this book is an extraordinary journey to the roof of Africa.

This is a companion book to writer and mountaineer David Breashears' film, which follows the weeklong journey of five trekkers and a guide to the top of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Salkeld presents a comprehensive portrait of this impressive mountain, which draws thousands of climbers every year. The author describes Kilimanjaro as, in effect, a solitary island with unique flora and an ice-crowned, flattop appearance that has inspired folk legends and writings by Europeans ever since German missionaries initially saw it in the mid-1800s. Capably reworked by Salkeld, local oral tradition and historical accounts combine here with her personal observations of ascending through the ecological zones en route to the summit. In addition, stills of the ethereal heights and articles by experts on Kilimanjaro's geology and environmental fragility make the album irresistible on many levels. Gilbert Taylor
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