Welcome to Africa! On arrival in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania you will be met by a representative for your road transfer to Moshi and the Springlands Hotel, where you will enjoy your first night in Africa!
Your day starts early with a briefing, followed by breakfast and a 50-minute drive from Moshi to the Machame Village where your guides and porters prepare and pack your equipment and supplies. You will receive a lunch pack, and you can also buy mineral water in the village. You then drive to the Machame Gate, unless the road is very muddy and impassable, in which case you will walk the 3km to the gate. After registering at the park office you start your ascent and enter the rain forest immediately. Heavy rains on this side of the mountain often transform the trail into a soggy, slippery experience, so good footgear, trekking poles, and gaiters are useful. You will enjoy a welcomed lunch stop halfway up and will reach the Machame camping area in the late afternoon. Your porters will arrive at camp before you and will erect your tent before you arrive. In the evening, the porters boil drinking and washing water while the cook prepares your dinner.
You rise early and after breakfast, climb for an hour to the top of the forest, then for two hours through a gentle moorland. After a short lunch and rest, you continue up a rocky ridge onto the Shira Plateau where you will be able to see Kilimanjaro’s great Western Breach with its stunning glaciers. Sometimes, the walls of the Western Breach are draped with extensive ice curtains. You are now west of Kibo on the opposite side of the mountain from the Marangu Route. After a short hike west, you reach the Shira campsite.
After breakfast, you will hike east up a steepening path above the highest vegetation toward Kilimanjaro’s looming mass. After several hours, you walk through a rocky landscape to reach the prominent landmark called Lava Tower. This chunky remnant of Kilimanjaro’s earlier volcanic activity is several hundred feet high and the trail passes right below it. You can scramble to the top of the tower. After a lunch stop near Lava Tower, descend for two hours below the lower cliffs of the Western Breach and Breach Wall to Barranco Camp. There are numerous photo opportunities on this hike, especially if the walls are festooned with ice. Barranco Camp is in a valley below the Breach and Great Barranco Walls, which should provide you with a memorable sunset while enjoying dinner.
After spending a night under the imposing Great Barranco Wall, you climb this awesome obstacle, which turns out to be easier than it looks. Topping out just below the Heim Glacier, you can now appreciate just how beautiful Kilimanjaro really is. The route then heads down through the Karanga Valley and goes over intervening ridges and valleys to join the Mweka Route, which will be your descent route. You have now completed the South Circuit, which offers views of the summit from many different angles. For now, all eyes are still on the summit, so turn left and hike up the ridge for another hour to Barafu Camp. Prepare for your summit climb and get to bed early in order to get a few hours of precious sleep as you will rise around midnight.
After some steaming tea and biscuits, you shuffle off into the night. Your 6-hour climb northwest up through heavy scree between the Rebmann and Ratzel glaciers to Stella Point on the crater rim is the most challenging part of the route for most climbers. At Stella Point you stop for a short rest and a chance to see a supremely sanguine sunrise. At Stella Point you join the top part of the Marangu Route. Depending on the season and recent storms, you may encounter snow on your remaining hike along the rim to Uhuru Peak.
And, finally – the Summit!
After celebrating your accomplishment, admiring the views and taking your photos you begin your 3-hour descent back to Barafu Camp. There you will have a well-earned but short rest, collect your gear, and hike down a rock and scree path into the moorland and eventually into the forest to Mweka Camp. This camp is in the upper forest, so you can expect mist or rain in the late afternoon.
After breakfast, it is a short, scenic, 3-hour hike back to Mweka Gate where a vehicle is waiting to take you to Mweka Village where you will be served a delicious hot lunch and then driven back to Moshi and the Springlands Hotel for the night.
Your adventure comes to an end as you transferred back to Kilimanjaro Airport in time to connect with your international flight home.
