Kilimanjaro routes compared

Some routes help you adjust better than others for a second reason. On the best routes you walk up high during the day and then come back down to sleep lower. Your body gets a taste of the altitude and then a night to recover from it.

Machame does this on the day you climb to Lava Tower at about 4,600 metres and then drop to Barranco Camp at about 3,900. Lemosho does the same, and adds two gentle days across the Shira Plateau at altitude first. Rongai does it a little. Marangu barely does it at all, because you go up the same path in one direction.

That profile is why Machame and Lemosho send more people to the summit than Marangu, even though Marangu is the gentler walk.

The routes begin on different sides of the mountain, and that shapes the whole trip.

Marangu starts at Marangu Gate on the south-east side, at about 1,860 metres. You go up through Mandara, Horombo and Kibo huts, and you come back down the same way.

Machame starts at Machame Gate on the south-west, at about 1,800 metres. It climbs to Shira Camp, swings east along the southern circuit through Barranco, Karanga and Barafu, and comes down the Mweka trail on the south side. Umbwe joins the same southern circuit at Barranco after a steeper start.

Lemosho starts further west, at Londorossi Gate near 2,100 metres, and spends two days crossing the Shira Plateau before joining Machame at Barranco. It also descends by Mweka.

Rongai is the only northern start, near the Kenyan border at about 1,950 metres. It goes up the drier side to Kibo Hut and descends the Marangu route to the south-east.

The Northern Circuit starts with Lemosho, then turns north at Lava Tower and circles the quiet northern slopes through Moir, Buffalo and Third Cave camps before the summit from School Hut. It descends by Mweka.

So on every route except Marangu you finish on a different side of the mountain from where you started, and the transfer at the end is part of the plan.