Marangu Route — 6-Day Kilimanjaro Trek

From the Marangu gate at 1,860 metres the path goes straight into montane rainforest. The forest is why many people rate Marangu's first day the most beautiful on the mountain. It is closed, wet and green, with colobus monkeys overhead and the trail a muddy track between huge buttressed trees. The slope is gentle and the walking takes four to five hours. The whole difficulty today is discipline. The pace that feels natural at this altitude is roughly twice the pace that will work at 4,000 metres, and getting the habit early matters. Mandara Hut sits in a clearing at the upper edge of the forest. Do the short afternoon walk to Maundi Crater.

The forest gives way to heather and open moorland within half an hour, and on a clear morning Kibo appears ahead for the first time. The day is a long, steady climb over open ground, scattered with giant lobelia and groundsel. These plants grow nowhere else and look like nothing else. Five to six hours of walking and about a thousand metres of height gain bring you to Horombo Hut at 3,700 metres. This is where most people first feel the altitude properly. Headache and breathlessness are common here. Drink more water than feels sensible. Eat even without appetite. And tell your guide how you feel instead of pushing through quietly.

This is the acclimatisation day, and it is the whole reason to take six days on Marangu instead of five. You spend a second night at Horombo, but you do not sit still. You walk up toward the Mawenzi ridge, or out to the Zebra Rocks at about 4,000 metres, then come back down to sleep at 3,700. Climbing high and sleeping low is how your body adapts. This one day is the difference between Marangu's poor five-day summit rate and a much better one. It is also a good day in its own right. The Zebra Rocks are striped where mineral-laden water has run down over dark volcanic rock, and they are a genuine curiosity. Walking without a full day's target ahead of you is a rare pleasure on this mountain.

You leave the moorland and cross the saddle between Mawenzi and Kibo. It is a high alpine desert of volcanic rubble and wind, with almost nothing growing, and it is the emptiest and strangest ground on the route. Five to six hours of walking, mostly gently uphill, bring you to Kibo Hut at about 4,700 metres. The air is now thin enough that ordinary things are hard. Unpacking a bag leaves you breathless. Arrive in the early afternoon. Eat what you can, drink steadily, and get into your sleeping bag by early evening. Sleep at this height is broken and shallow for almost everyone, so lying warm and still is the realistic goal, not real rest.

Summit night. You are woken around eleven and start climbing shortly after midnight, up scree in the dark by head torch. The switchbacks up to Gilman's Point at about 5,685 metres take five or six hours, and they are the hardest sustained effort of the trek. Steep, cold, and at a height where every step needs deliberate breathing. From Gilman's Point the crater rim path leads round to Uhuru Peak at 5,895 metres, another hour to ninety minutes, and you arrive close to sunrise. The descent is fast on the same scree, back to Kibo for a rest and food, then on down to Horombo. It is a fourteen to sixteen hour day. It is why the sixth day exists on this route.

The final descent, from Horombo at 3,700 metres, back down through the moorland and forest to the Marangu gate at 1,860. It takes about six hours and all of it is downhill. It is your knees that suffer, not your lungs. Poles help a great deal. After four days above the treeline, the forest at the end feels almost tropical. Most people physically notice how much more oxygen there is at the gate. Certificates are handed out there, gold for Uhuru and green for Gilman's Point. The drive back to Moshi takes about an hour. Have your tipping money ready, in the right notes, before the ceremony, not during it.