Kilimanjaro · Seven Days

Six nights on the mountain, by the Marangu route

The only route up Kilimanjaro with huts instead of tents, and this version carries the extra acclimatisation night at Horombo that the five-day climb leaves out.

Days

5,895 m

Summit

72 km

Walked

Full

Board on the mountain

I · Overview

The route, and why this shape

One mountain, one route, your own crew. Moshi to Moshi in seven days.

Marangu is the oldest and most established route on the mountain, approaching from the south-east through three hut clusters — Mandara, Horombo, Kibo — each with bunk rooms and a dining hall rather than a tent. It is the only route on Kilimanjaro where climbers do not camp, and its well-graded, gentle gradient is why it is often marketed as the easiest way up.

The gradient is also the catch. Because the ascent and the descent share the same path both ways, the popular five-day version gives the fewest nights above 3,000 metres of any route on the mountain, with no rest day built in. This is the six-night version, with a full acclimatisation day at Horombo added on the way up — the same logic that makes the extra night on Machame and Lemosho worth the extra day. We do not sell the five-day climb.

It is a private climb. You choose the date, the crew is yours, and the pace is set for you rather than for a group. The route retraces itself, so it shows you the forest and moorland twice rather than once, and it skips the high traverses — the Lava Tower, the Shira plateau, the Barranco Wall — that give the western and southern routes their variety. What it trades for that is a hut roof over your head every night on the mountain, including tonight’s.

Length

7 days / 6 nights

Country

Tanzania

Start / end

Moshi → Moshi

Tour type

Private climb, Marangu route, dormitory huts

Group size

Private — from one climber upwards

Meal plan

Full board, cooked by the crew, served in the hut dining rooms

Best months

January – February, and June – October

Activity level

Strenuous — 12 to 16 hours on summit day

Guides

One guide for every two climbers, plus a lead guide

II · The days

Day by day, all seven

Every day opens. One night in Moshi, six on the mountain, the summit on day six. See every lodge and camp we use

Day

Arrival

Moshi, and the gear check

03°21′S 37°20′E

Dinner

Moshi, and the gear check

03°21′S 37°20′E

You land at Kilimanjaro International and are driven the forty-five kilometres east to Moshi, a little under an hour. The mountain sits to the north the whole way and is usually hidden in cloud by the afternoon; the reliable first sight of the summit is from the hotel garden at six the next morning, before the day’s cloud builds.

This is a private climb, so the evening belongs to you and your lead guide. After dinner the guide runs the briefing at your table — the huts, the daily hours, and the acclimatisation day at Horombo. Marangu is the only route on the mountain that sleeps in huts rather than tents, but the huts are unheated A-frame buildings above the treeline, so the kit check is no less careful for it: boots worn in, a sleeping bag rated to at least minus ten, a down jacket, a headtorch with spare batteries.

Your duffel for the porters is weighed tonight. The limit is 15 kilograms; the park weighs porter loads at the gate and the guides will hold you to it. Sleep at about 890 metres, the lowest bed of the week.

Meals

Dinner

Travel

Kilimanjaro International to Moshi · ~45 km · about 1 hr

Highlight

Your lead guide goes through every item of kit on the bed

Gear check

Private briefing

Duffel weighed to 15 kg

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Weruweru River Lodge

★★★★☆

Moshi, garden hotel below the mountain

En-suite room, a proper bed, and a hot shower — the last until day 7. Breakfast before the drive to Marangu Gate.

LUXURY

Kilimanjaro Coffee Lodge

★★★★★

Moshi, lodge on the coffee slopes above town

Higher, cooler and quieter, with the summit above the terrace on a clear morning. Same guide, same gear check.

Day

Rainforest

Marangu Gate to Mandara Hut

03°11′S 37°31′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Marangu Gate to Mandara Hut

03°11′S 37°31′E

An hour’s drive from Moshi to Marangu Gate, then registration while the park signs you in and weighs the porter loads. Marangu is the oldest and most established route on the mountain, and the gate is busier with day walkers and other parties than the gates on the western and southern sides.

The path climbs through montane rainforest on a well-graded track — Marangu’s gentle gradient is the reason it is often marketed as the easiest way up. It is muddy in most months regardless: the south-eastern slope catches more rain than the western approaches, and the forest here rarely dries out fully. Blue monkeys and black-and-white colobus are common in the first two hours.

Mandara Hut, at 2,720 metres, is the first of the route’s three A-frame hut clusters — bunk rooms with foam mattresses, a separate dining hut, and the park’s own toilets nearby. There is no mess tent to pitch and no sleeping tent to climb into; the first evening health check, pulse and oxygen saturation, is taken in the dining hut instead, and it is taken every evening from here on.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Marangu Gate 1,860 m → Mandara Hut 2,720 m · 8 km · 4–5 hrs · +860 m

Highlight

Eight kilometres of rainforest, and Kilimanjaro’s oldest, most walked route underfoot

Forest zone

Porter loads weighed

First hut, not a tent

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Mandara Hut — public hut

★★★★☆

Mandara Hut, 2,720 m — public hut, dormitory room

A-frame bunk hut, foam mattress provided, shared with other parties on a busy night. A separate dining hut for meals; the park’s own long-drop toilets close by.

LUXURY

Mandara Hut — public hut

★★★★★

Mandara Hut, 2,720 m — public hut, private room where available

The smallest room in the same hut, kept for your party alone when the mountain is not full, plus a private toilet tent pitched outside for the week.

Day

Moorland

Up through the heather to Horombo Hut

03°08′S 37°26′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Up through the heather to Horombo Hut

03°08′S 37°26′E

The forest thins within the first hour and gives way to giant heather, then open moorland, on a ridge path that is the steadiest climbing of the route rather than the steepest. It is a long day — twelve kilometres and a thousand metres of height — because Marangu’s gradient is graded gentle rather than short.

Both of Kilimanjaro’s peaks come into view from the moorland: Kibo’s snow-streaked summit cone ahead, and Mawenzi’s jagged black spires to the east, the mountain’s second, long-extinct peak. Horombo Hut sits at 3,720 metres between the two, the largest hut complex on the route, because every Marangu climber sleeps here twice — tonight, and again on the way down after the summit.

The dining hut is busier here than at Mandara, and it is where the guide sets out tomorrow’s rest day. Frost on the hut roof by morning is normal in any month; this is the coldest sleep before Kibo.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Mandara Hut 2,720 m → Horombo Hut 3,720 m · 12 km · 6–8 hrs · +1,000 m

Highlight

The biggest single climb of the week, out of the forest and onto the moor

Moorland zone

Kibo and Mawenzi both in view

Largest hut on the route

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Horombo Hut — public hut

★★★★☆

Horombo Hut, 3,720 m — public hut, dormitory room

A-frame bunk hut on open moorland, foam mattress, shared dining hut. Busy most nights — Horombo holds more climbers than any other hut on the mountain.

LUXURY

Horombo Hut — public hut

★★★★★

Horombo Hut, 3,720 m — public hut, private room where available

The smallest room in the same hut where the mountain allows it, the private toilet tent pitched beside it, and a pulse-oximeter reading recorded for each climber at the evening check.

Day

Acclimatisation

A day at Horombo, and the walk towards Mawenzi

03°08′S 37°26′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

A day at Horombo, and the walk towards Mawenzi

03°08′S 37°26′E

This is the day the five-day Marangu climb leaves out, and the reason we do not sell that version. Marangu is the only route on the mountain walked entirely out and back on one gentle gradient, which also means it is the only route where a climber can reach Kibo Hut having spent no night above 3,720 metres before it — unless a rest day is built in here.

The guide takes you out on foot towards Kibo along tomorrow’s path as far as Zebra Rocks, a striped outcrop a couple of hours up, or the other way onto the lower slopes of Mawenzi towards Mawenzi Hut, depending on which gives the better weather that morning. Either way the plan is the same: gain a few hundred metres of height, feel what that does at 4,000 metres, and come back down to sleep at Horombo again.

That is climb-high, sleep-low, the same principle the western routes build into their fourth day at Lava Tower. Your guide asks how you feel at the turnaround point and again at the hut, and the honest answer is the useful one — it is what decides the pace he sets you tomorrow, on the walk across the Saddle.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Horombo Hut 3,720 m → towards Zebra Rocks or the Mawenzi ridge, and back · about 10 km round trip · 3–5 hrs · net 0 m

Highlight

Climb a few hundred metres for the afternoon; sleep at the same 3,720 metres tonight

Rest day, not a day off legs

Climb high, sleep low

The night the 5-day climb skips

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Horombo Hut — public hut

★★★★☆

Horombo Hut, 3,720 m — public hut, dormitory room

The same room as last night. A second evening in the dining hut, and a briefing for the crossing to Kibo tomorrow.

LUXURY

Horombo Hut — public hut

★★★★★

Horombo Hut, 3,720 m — public hut, private room where available

The same private room and toilet tent as last night, and a second night to rest properly before the Saddle.

Day

The Saddle

Across the Saddle to Kibo Hut

03°05′S 37°23′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Across the Saddle to Kibo Hut

03°05′S 37°23′E

The moorland runs out within the first hour and the path enters the Saddle, the high desert plain that separates Kibo from Mawenzi — bare volcanic gravel, almost nothing growing, and little shelter from whatever wind is moving across it. It is the most exposed walking of the week, ten kilometres of it, and the last stretch is the slowest: everyone’s pace drops above 4,000 metres, and your guide will not let you fight that.

Last Water Point, about two-thirds of the way across, is the last running water on the mountain; porters fill containers here for the summit push and the following morning’s tea. From there the ground steepens gently towards Kibo’s southern face.

Kibo Hut, at 4,703 metres, is built of stone rather than the wooden A-frames lower down — the weather here does not allow for less. Nothing grows and the wind does not stop. You arrive by mid-afternoon, and the rest of the day is for the summit briefing and for lying down before a midnight start.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Horombo Hut 3,720 m → Kibo Hut 4,703 m · 10 km · 6–8 hrs · +983 m

Highlight

Alpine desert between two peaks, and the last hut before the summit

The Saddle

Last water point behind you

Stone-built summit hut

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Kibo Hut — public hut

★★★★☆

Kibo Hut, 4,703 m — public hut, dormitory room

Stone hut, bunk room, a few hours in it rather than a full night. The crew wake you before midnight with tea and biscuits.

LUXURY

Kibo Hut — public hut

★★★★★

Kibo Hut, 4,703 m — public hut, private room where available

The smallest room kept for your party where the mountain allows it, and a private toilet tent pitched outside — at this altitude and this hour, the upgrade climbers say they were most glad of.

Day

Summit

Gilman's Point, Uhuru Peak, and back down to Horombo

03°05′S 37°21′E

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Gilman’s Point, Uhuru Peak, and back down to Horombo

03°05′S 37°21′E

You leave Kibo Hut around midnight, a headtorch in front of you and one behind. The path switchbacks up frozen volcanic scree for five to six hours to Gilman’s Point, 5,685 metres, on the eastern rim of the crater — the steepest, hardest section of the whole route, and the reason Marangu’s gentle reputation lower down counts for little on summit night.

From Gilman’s Point the path runs on along the crater rim, past the southern icefield, to Uhuru Peak at 5,895 metres — the highest point in Africa, usually reached around sunrise. Nobody can promise you the summit. Your guide checks your oxygen saturation and watches your footing and your speech, and will turn you round if the readings or the signs say so. A climber who stops at Gilman’s Point has still stood on the crater rim of Kilimanjaro.

Ten minutes on top, then down. The way back to Kibo Hut takes two to three hours, mostly a slide down the same scree that took six hours to climb. After a short rest and a hot meal at Kibo, the walk continues the same afternoon all the way down to Horombo — a long day on tired legs, but it puts you a night closer to the gate and a full 2,000 metres lower to sleep.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Travel

Kibo Hut 4,703 m → Gilman’s Point 5,685 m → Uhuru Peak 5,895 m → Horombo Hut 3,720 m · 6 km up, 16 km down · 12–16 hrs · +1,192 m / −2,175 m

Highlight

1,192 metres up in the dark on scree, then almost 2,200 metres down by evening

Gilman’s Point 5,685 m

Uhuru Peak 5,895 m

Down to Horombo the same day

Where you sleep

COMFORT

Horombo Hut — public hut

★★★★☆

Horombo Hut, 3,720 m — public hut, dormitory room

The same hut as two nights ago. A long, early dinner, and the first proper sleep since Kibo.

LUXURY

Horombo Hut — public hut

★★★★★

Horombo Hut, 3,720 m — public hut, private room where available

The same private room as before, and a hot bowl of water waiting — the first real wash since Kibo Hut.

Day

Departure

Marangu Gate, certificates, and Moshi

03°15′S 37°31′E

Breakfast · Lunch

Marangu Gate, certificates, and Moshi

03°15′S 37°31′E

Breakfast at Horombo, then twenty kilometres down through the moorland and the rainforest you climbed up through on days two and three — Marangu is the one route on the mountain where the descent shows you nothing new, because it retraces the ascent rather than coming down a separate trail.

It is hard on the knees after a summit night, and trekking poles matter more today than on any other day. Because the route starts and ends at the same gate, the tipping ceremony is held here rather than partway down: you hand the tips to your lead guide in front of the whole crew, who reads out what each person receives. The per-crew-member figures are under Other costs; read them before you climb, not after.

At the gate you sign out of the park and the summit certificates are issued — green for Gilman’s Point, gold for Uhuru Peak. A vehicle takes you the hour back to Moshi for lunch and, at last, a shower. If you are flying out tonight you are driven to Kilimanjaro International in the evening; if you are going on to safari or to Zanzibar, you stay in Moshi and leave in the morning.

Meals

Breakfast · Lunch

Travel

Horombo Hut 3,720 m → Marangu Gate 1,860 m · 20 km · 5–7 hrs · −1,860 m, then ~1 hr drive to Moshi

Highlight

The same forest, downhill this time, then tips, certificates, and a shower

Tipping ceremony

Summit certificate

Onward to safari or Zanzibar

Where you sleep

Departure day — no overnight

III · Rates

What it costs, by group size

Per-person pricing that falls as the party grows — choose a tier to see the table.

Per person, costed September 2026 at high-season rates. Tell us your dates and group size and we will quote them, rather than show you a range.

Standard rates by group size, per person and group total
Group size	Rooms	Per person	Group total
1 climber	own room	$2,410	$2,410
2 climbers	1 room	$2,050	$4,100
3 climbers	1 room	$2,020	$6,060
4 climbers	2 rooms	$1,930	$7,720
5 climbers	2 rooms	$1,940	$9,700
6+ climbers	3 rooms	$1,900	$11,400

Single room supplement

$50

Added when a climber does not share a room

Sleeping bag hire

USD 45 per climb

Minus-ten-rated bag, hired in Moshi for the climb

Peak-date uplift

None

Full-moon summit nights, and the festive weeks

Premium rates by group size, per person and group total
Group size	Rooms	Per person	Group total
1 climber	own room	$2,580	$2,580
2 climbers	1 room	$2,160	$4,320
3 climbers	1 room	$2,150	$6,450
4 climbers	2 rooms	$2,050	$8,200
5 climbers	2 rooms	$2,060	$10,300
6+ climbers	3 rooms	$2,010	$12,060

Single room supplement

$100

Added when a climber does not share a room

Sleeping bag hire

USD 45 per climb

Minus-ten-rated bag, hired in Moshi for the climb

Peak-date uplift

None

Full-moon summit nights, and the festive weeks

All figures in US dollars, per person sharing unless stated. Valid for travel until 30 June 2027. Park fees, guiding, vehicle, accommodation and full board are included — see what is and is not covered below.

IV · Included

What is in the price, and what is not

Stated in full, both ways. Park, hut and rescue fees are in; crew tips are not.

What is included

Kilimanjaro National Park entry, hut and rescue fees for all six nights
One night in Moshi before the climb, bed and breakfast
Transfers Moshi ↔ Marangu Gate, both ways
A lead guide and assistant guides — one guide for every two climbers
Porters and a cook, with their park fees and wages
All meals on the mountain, cooked fresh, with boiled drinking water
A dormitory bunk with mattress in each hut — bring or hire your own sleeping bag
Pulse oximeter checks every evening
Emergency evacuation plan with the Kilimanjaro National Park rescue team and, when needed, helicopter evacuation for insured climbers

What is not

International flights to and from Tanzania
Tanzania visa — USD 50, or USD 100 for United States passports
Travel insurance covering trekking to 6,000 metres, which every climber must hold
Tips for the mountain crew — about USD 250 – 350 per climber in total, see Other costs
Sleeping bag hire — USD 45 per climb
Personal gear: boots, down jacket, poles, headtorch and layers
Emergency oxygen and a portable altitude chamber — carried on every climb, at no extra charge
Airport transfers to and from Kilimanjaro International
Lunch and dinner in Moshi on days 1 and 7, and any extra hotel nights

V · Add-ons

Worth adding, if you have the days

Priced separately and arranged on request.

After day 7

A rest night in Moshi after the climb

The descent finishes early afternoon and most flights leave in the evening. A night in Moshi means a full sleep in a bed before the aircraft, and it protects you if you come off the mountain later than planned.

USD 170 per person, for 2 guests

Day 1

Kit hire in Moshi

A minus-ten sleeping bag, poles, a down jacket, gaiters — anything you would rather not buy for one week. Hired the evening you arrive, so the gear check happens with the real kit.

USD 130 per person

After day 7 · 2–3 nights

Three days on safari afterwards

Tarangire and the Ngorongoro Crater are a morning’s drive from Moshi. After six days on foot, a vehicle with a roof hatch and lunch at a table is what your legs want.

USD 1,670 per person, for 2 guests

After day 7 · 3–5 nights

Zanzibar, afterwards

Flights from Kilimanjaro International take about an hour and a quarter. Three or four nights on the east coast is the usual way to recover from the mountain.

From USD 1,340 per person, 3 nights

VI · The mountain

Where this itinerary takes you

One park, one route, one town at the bottom of it.

Kilimanjaro National Park

1,688 square kilometres around a free-standing volcano that rises from farmland at about 1,000 metres to 5,895 metres at Uhuru Peak. Five climate zones stack up the mountain — cultivated slopes, rainforest, heath and moorland, alpine desert, and the summit ice — and the Marangu route walks through every one of them, twice.

The Marangu route

The south-eastern ascent, roughly 72 kilometres out and back along one path, the same both ways. The only route with huts rather than tents — Mandara, Horombo and Kibo — and the gentlest, most walked way onto the mountain, though also the least varied of the six.

Moshi

The town at the foot of the mountain, at about 890 metres on the southern slopes, an hour east of Kilimanjaro International. The kit-hire shops, the gear check and the first and last showers all happen here.

The question every climber asks

Will I reach the summit?

6 nights

On the mountain — with the acclimatisation day the five-day climb skips

No honest operator will give you a number for your own chances, because the thing that decides them is how your body handles altitude, and nobody can know that before you go up. Marangu’s gentle gradient makes the walking itself the least demanding of the six routes, but the walking is not what stops people above 4,000 metres. What the evidence across the mountain shows plainly is that itineraries with more nights spent adjusting to altitude generally get more people to the top, and Marangu’s popular five-day version has fewer of those nights than any other route.

This page does not quote a success rate. What we will say is that the six-night Marangu climb carries the one thing that matters most for this particular route: the rest day at Horombo, which gives you a night above 3,700 metres before Kibo Hut rather than arriving there straight from the forest. On a private climb your guide can also slow the pace across the Saddle on the day you need it, which a group cannot. If you are turned round, it will be because the guide read the signs — oxygen saturation, coordination, speech — and made the call, and on this mountain that call is the one that matters.

VII · Season

The best time to travel

Two dry windows; the rains are possible but not recommended.

January and February are the warmest and clearest months on the mountain: dry, settled, the summit visible most mornings, and fewer climbers than the northern summer. It is the best time to climb Marangu, and a private climb can be dated to a full moon so that the scree above Kibo Hut is lit from camp to the rim.

June to October is the long dry season and the busiest, since Marangu is the most walked route on the mountain. Cold — minus ten to minus twenty on summit night is normal — but reliably dry higher up. The forest on this south-eastern side stays wetter than the western and southern approaches even in these months, so mud on the first two days is normal whatever the season.

March to May is the long rains. The forest days are a river of mud even by Marangu’s standards, the summit cone is often in fresh snow, and the odds of a clear morning at Gilman’s Point are poor. We will run a private climb in these months if you ask, and we will tell you what to expect first, but we do not recommend it.

November is the short rains — brief afternoon storms, usually, with the mountain clearing by evening. It is quieter and cheaper and it can be excellent; it is also unpredictable. December sits either side of the festive weeks and is a better bet than November for a first climb.

VIII · Flights

Getting there and back

Fly into Kilimanjaro International. Arrive a day early if you can; fly home a day late.

Fly into Kilimanjaro International (JRO). It is forty-five kilometres from Moshi, and any other airport adds a day. Most European routings connect through Doha, Istanbul, Amsterdam or Addis Ababa and land in the evening.

Arrive the day before your climb starts if you can. The gear check is on the evening of day 1 and you leave for the gate the next morning; a delayed bag with your boots in it is far easier to chase with a day in hand than with none.

Coming home, the climb ends in Moshi on the afternoon of day 7. An evening flight out of JRO the same day is workable but tight — if you are slow off the mountain there is no margin. A night in Moshi and a flight on day 8 is the shape we recommend.

Tanzania requires a visa for most passports — USD 50, or USD 100 for United States citizens, valid up to 90 days. Apply online in advance rather than at the airport after an overnight flight.

IX · Other costs

What else you will spend

Visa, insurance, crew tips and kit hire — set out so there is no surprise at the gate.

Visa and entry

USD 50 — USD 100 for US passports

Tanzania issues a tourist visa online (eVisa) or on arrival at Kilimanjaro International. Applying in advance is faster and avoids the queue at immigration after an evening arrival.

A yellow fever certificate is required only if you are arriving from a country where yellow fever is endemic. Coming directly from Europe or North America, it is not.

Travel insurance

Typically USD 80 – 200 per trip

Every climber must hold insurance that explicitly covers trekking to 6,000 metres. Many standard policies stop at 3,000 or 4,000, and the difference only becomes visible when a claim is refused. Read the altitude clause, not the summary.

Medical evacuation cover is the part that matters. Rescue off the mountain begins with the park’s rescue team, which the fees cover, and continues to a hospital in Moshi, which they do not.

Tips for the crew

Budgeted per crew member, per climb

Kilimanjaro tips are given per crew member rather than per guest per day, and they are a real part of the crew’s income. A hut route needs no mess tent or sleeping tents carried, so a Marangu crew usually runs smaller than a camping route’s crew for the same party — you still hand the tips over in front of everyone, at the gate on the last morning.

The figures below are the amounts per crew member for the whole climb, shared across your party. Bring it in cash, in US dollars, before you leave Moshi.

Kit hire and drinks

USD 5 – 60 per item for the climb

Boiled drinking water is provided on the mountain and nothing is sold above the gate, so there is nothing to spend up there. In Moshi, hire what you do not own rather than buying it — a sleeping bag rated to minus ten, poles, a down jacket.

Personal spending

Entirely up to you

Meals in Moshi on the first and last evenings, a beer at the gate, laundry at the hotel, and the coffee everyone buys on the way home. Cash in small US dollar notes is more useful than a card; the crew are paid and tipped in cash.

Notes dated before 2009 are refused across Tanzania. Bring newer ones.

X · Why us

Why book this with us

Moshi-based, and Tanzanian-owned

The guides, the crew and the office are ours. When a climber needs to come down early, the decision is made by the people on the path, not by a booking agent in another time zone.

Six nights, not five

We do not sell the five-day Marangu climb. The rest day at Horombo costs a day and it is the day that gives this route any acclimatisation profile worth the name. Every Marangu climb on this page carries it.

Your pace, your date

A private climb starts when you want it to and moves at the speed your body sets. If the Saddle goes badly, the schedule bends around you rather than around a timetable.

We will turn you round

Your guide checks you every evening, and if the readings say down, you go down. A climb that ends at Gilman’s Point on a guide’s call is a good outcome. We say so before you book, not after.

XI · Questions

Frequently asked

What climbers ask before booking a private date.

How much does the Marangu route climb cost?

A private climb is priced per person and falls as the party grows, because the guide, cook and crew are shared. The table above sets out the Standard and Premium tiers by party size. Our rates for this climb are set out in the table above — ask us for the dates you have in mind and we will quote them plainly, including park fees.

Why six nights and not five?

The five-day Marangu climb walks straight from Horombo to Kibo Hut with no acclimatisation day between them, giving fewer nights above 3,000 metres than any other route on the mountain. The six-night version stops for a full day at Horombo instead, climbing towards Mawenzi or Zebra Rocks and sleeping at the same altitude again that night. Itineraries with more acclimatisation nights get more climbers to the summit; this is the cheapest extra day on this particular route.

Why choose Marangu over Machame or Lemosho?

Huts, mainly. You sleep under a roof every night rather than in a tent, and you do not need to carry or hire camping gear. The trade is scenery and acclimatisation: Marangu retraces the same path up and down and skips the Lava Tower, the Shira plateau and the Barranco Wall, and its out-and-back gradient gives a gentler acclimatisation profile than the western routes even with the rest day included. For a private climb with the best acclimatisation profile of the popular routes, see the Lemosho route. For a scheduled group departure on fixed dates, see the joining Kilimanjaro climb, which walks the Machame route.

How fit do I need to be?

Fit enough to walk four to eight hours a day for five days with a daypack, and then twelve to sixteen hours on summit day. That is hill-walking fitness, not athletic fitness. Altitude, not strength, is what stops people, and fitness does not protect against it — see how altitude works on Kilimanjaro.

What is the summit success rate on Marangu?

We do not publish one, and we would be wary of any operator who quotes a precise figure. What is known is that Marangu’s popular five-day version has the fewest acclimatisation nights of any route on the mountain, which is why we sell the six-night version with the rest day at Horombo instead. Nobody can promise you the top.

What are the huts like?

A-frame buildings with bunk rooms, foam mattresses and a separate dining hut for meals — no tent to pitch or take down. Standard tier is a shared dormitory room, which on a busy week can mean sharing with climbers from other parties. Premium reserves the smallest room in the same hut for your party where the mountain allows it, plus a private toilet tent pitched outside; Kibo Hut, at 4,703 metres, is built of stone rather than wood.

Do you carry oxygen or a portable altitude chamber?

Emergency oxygen and a portable hyperbaric bag are carried on every climb. Either is for getting a sick climber down, not for getting a climber up: the treatment for altitude sickness is descent, and an assistant guide takes you down while the rest of your party continues.

What happens if I cannot go on?

An assistant guide takes you down, and the rest of your party continues with the lead guide. That is what the assistant guides are for. People who turn round on the Saddle or below Gilman’s Point usually feel well again within hours of descending.

What is the minimum age?

The park sets a minimum of 10 years for climbing above 3,000 metres. On a private climb we will take families with children from 10, with the pace set for the youngest climber and a guide assigned to them.

XII · Your trip

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