The place
Kilimanjaro rises to 5,895 metres from farmland sitting barely 900 metres above the sea — no range around it and no foothills to speak of, just a single volcanic massif with three cones: Kibo, which carries Uhuru Peak and the summit glaciers; jagged Mawenzi at 5,149 metres; and the eroded Shira plateau to the west.
You walk up through five climate zones in under a week — cultivated foothills, then rainforest, heath and giant heather, alpine desert, and finally the arctic summit zone where nothing grows and the Furtwängler glacier retreats a little further each year. No technical climbing is required anywhere on the standard routes. What the mountain asks for instead is time: summit success has far more to do with the number of nights you spend acclimatising than with how fit you arrive.
Why go
We only sell routes long enough to give you a real chance at the crater rim.
When to visit
There are two clear windows. January to mid-March is warmer, with the best odds of a clear summit morning. June to October is drier, colder at altitude and much busier. The long rains of April and May, and the short rains in November, make for hard and slippery walking on every route.
■ Prime ■ Good ▪ Shoulder
Ready when you are
Most climbers follow the mountain with a few nights on the Serengeti plains, or a week on Zanzibar — the best possible way to let your legs recover.
