Engineers analyze Mt Kilimanjaro climb data

11/1/2010 7:17 AM EDT

With Darren’s device, we changed the timing to log GPS data once every 30 minutes, because on some days he would only be hiking for a few hours. We wanted to get more data while he was moving, and not have tons of data while he was resting at camp. I believe that Darren is going to talk about his data soon, so I will focus on the data from Chris’s device in this blog post.

Below is the overall altitude change from Chris’s trek up the mountain. You can see that he spent most of his time on the mountain near or above 3000m (9842feet), which is above nearly all of the United States.

What is really interesting to see is the below temperature changes his device measured over the trek. The first big spike, which sees a temperature of ~36 ° Celsius, looks like he kept the device in his sleeping bag with him (roughly 98° F). You can also see that it gets colder and colder every night, and the big drop occurs when Chris made it to the summit of the mountain.

Reaching the Summit

From what Darren told me about his trip, he left the highest camp for the summit around midnight and it took him roughly seven hours to get there. Hiking in below freezing weather for 10+ hours is pretty extreme for man and machine, but both Chris and Darren were able to make it all the way to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and back home with their devices intact and functioning well.

This post is part of a series chronicling the adventures of engineers Darren Wenn of Microchip Technology and Chris McAneny of Future Electronics as they prepare for and climb Africa’s famous Mt. Kilimanjaro, equipped with a special device they designed for taking measurements in extreme conditions. Read all the blog posts at our blog Extreme Low Power in an Extreme Location.