Uhuru Peak
5,895 metres, the summit, and the highest point in Africa. Reached in the dark so you arrive for sunrise over the Mawenzi peak.
A Mount Kilimanjaro trek is a walk, not a climb — no ropes, no technical skill, nothing you need to have trained years for. What it is instead is a long, patient argument with altitude, and that is the part people underestimate. At 5,895 metres Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest freestanding mountain anywhere.
The route you choose matters more than your fitness. Marangu is the shortest and sleeps in huts, which sounds appealing and has the lowest success rate on the mountain because it gives you the least time to acclimatise. Machame is harder day to day and succeeds far more often. Lemosho and the northern circuit are longer still, quieter, and better again. We will push you toward the longer options, because they work.
You walk through five climate zones in under a week — farmland, rainforest, heath and moorland, alpine desert, then the arctic summit. Our crews are Tanzanian, paid and equipped to KPAP standards, and we run our own briefings rather than subcontracting them. Summit night starts around midnight and is genuinely hard. Everything before it is a pleasant walk.
Best time to visitJanuary–March and June–October
5,895 metres, the summit, and the highest point in Africa. Reached in the dark so you arrive for sunrise over the Mawenzi peak.
A high, broad, ancient caldera floor on the western routes. Enormous open ground with the main cone ahead of you all day.
A 257-metre scramble on the Machame and Lemosho routes. It looks impossible from the campsite below and is entirely manageable with hands.
The first day on every route. Dense, dripping, full of colobus and turaco, and utterly unlike the four zones above it.
5–6 days, hut accommodation. The shortest and, precisely because of that, the one with the lowest summit success rate.
6–7 days, camping. Harder walking, much better acclimatisation profile, and the most popular route for good reason.
7–8 days, camping. Quieter, more scenic, and the highest success rate of the standard routes.
3–4 days on Meru before Kilimanjaro. The single most effective thing you can do to improve your odds.
