# Kilimanjaro National Park

> The highest point in Africa, and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level on earth.

Canonical: https://seeyoutanzania.com/parks/kilimanjaro
Edited by: Kabeer Dalvi (https://seeyoutanzania.com/about)

## At a glance

- **Managed by:** TANAPA
- **Area:** 1,712 km²
- **Established:** 1973
- **Region:** Kilimanjaro Region
- **Best time:** January–March and June–October
- **UNESCO:** World Heritage Site, inscribed 1987

## The park

Three volcanic cones — Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira — of which only Kibo still carries ice. Uhuru Peak, on Kibo's rim, stands at **5,895 metres**, and the climb passes through something close to a continental cross-section: cultivated foothills, then rainforest, then heath and moorland, then high alpine desert, then the ice.

The summit is a walk rather than a climb, requiring no technical skill, and that is precisely why it is underestimated. The determining factor is acclimatisation, not fitness, and short itineraries turn people back far more often than long ones. There is no way to buy past the time your body needs between three and four thousand metres.

The mountain also runs on labour that is easy not to see. A climb employs guides, cooks and porters, usually several for each climber. The Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project publishes standards on wages, load limits and equipment because those things were routinely neglected. Operators meeting those standards cost more, and the difference goes to the people carrying the loads.

## Wildlife

- Colobus monkey
- Blue monkey
- Bushbuck
- Turaco
- Eland (high moorland)

## What to do

### Machame, seven or eight days

The southern approach, and the best acclimatisation profile of the popular routes.

### The Shira plateau

A high, wide volcanic shelf that most routes cross on day two or three.

### The northern icefields

What remains of the summit glaciers, and visibly less each decade.

### Rainforest on the lower slopes

Colobus, blue monkey and turaco, before the altitude begins.

## Getting there

Gates at Machame, Marangu, Londorossi and Rongai, all within an hour or two of Moshi. Kilimanjaro International Airport lies between Moshi and Arusha.

## The routes, and how to choose between them

Seven routes go up and two come down. The choice decides your odds of standing on the summit far more than your training does, because what it really decides is how many nights you spend between 3,000 and 4,500 metres.

**Marangu** is the only route with huts rather than tents, and the only one that goes up and down the same way. It is often sold as the easy option — it is not; its short profile gives the worst acclimatisation of the popular routes. **Machame** is the busiest, a southern approach with a genuine climb-high-sleep-low shape. **Lemosho** starts in the west, crosses the Shira plateau and joins Machame, with more days and quieter early stages. **Rongai** comes in from the dry northern side, the sensible choice in the wetter months. The **Northern Circuit** is the longest, loops around the quiet northern slopes, and has the best acclimatisation profile of any route. **Umbwe** is short, steep and for experienced walkers. **Mweka** is a descent route only, and the **Western Breach** is a direct line onto the crater that carries real rockfall risk and has killed climbers.

The single most useful rule: **add days**. Operators publish summit success rates, but nobody audits them and they are marketing figures; what is not disputed is that longer itineraries succeed more often than short ones on the same route.

*The routes. Days are the usual range; nights on the mountain decide acclimatisation.*

| Route | Usual days | Sleeping | Character |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Marangu | 5–6 | Huts | The only hut route, up and down the same path. Short profile, low success |
| Machame | 6–7 | Tents | The busiest. Climbs high and sleeps low, which helps |
| Lemosho | 7–8 | Tents | From the west across the Shira plateau. Quiet at the start, good profile |
| Rongai | 6–7 | Tents | The northern, drier side. The pick in the wetter months |
| Northern Circuit | 8–9 | Tents | The longest route and the best acclimatisation of all |
| Umbwe | 6–7 | Tents | Steep and direct. For people who already know what altitude feels like |
| Shira | 7–8 | Tents | Starts high by vehicle, which is exactly the wrong way to acclimatise |

## Altitude is the whole problem

Uhuru Peak stands at **5,895 metres**, where the air holds roughly half the oxygen it does at sea level. No technical skill is needed to get there, which is why the mountain is underestimated — the summit is a long walk, and the thing that stops people is their own physiology.

**Mild altitude sickness is normal**: headache, poor sleep, no appetite, breathlessness on small efforts. The serious forms are not. Fluid on the lungs and swelling of the brain both kill, both can develop within hours, and the only reliable treatment is to go down immediately. A guide who insists on descending is doing the job properly.

What helps: walking slowly — *pole pole* is not a cliché but the actual technique — drinking far more water than feels necessary, sleeping lower than the day's high point where the route allows, and building in an extra night. Fitness helps you enjoy it. It does not protect you from altitude.

Anyone considering preventive medication should ask a doctor before they travel, not a guide on the mountain, and should know that no drug removes the need to ascend slowly.

Note: This is general information, not medical advice. Altitude illness can become life-threatening in hours; discuss any medication and any existing condition with a doctor before booking.

## Five worlds on one mountain

TANAPA describes the mountain in five eco-climatic zones, and a climb passes through all of them in under a week — the reason Kilimanjaro is often described as walking from the equator to the Arctic.

**The cultivated foothills** are Chagga country: coffee and bananas in dense family gardens, described on the [Kilimanjaro region guide](https://seeyoutanzania.com/guides/kilimanjaro). **The montane forest** between roughly 1,800 and 2,800 metres is where the mountain's rain is caught and where its wildlife mostly lives — colobus and blue monkey, turaco, and an endemic flower, *Impatiens kilimanjari*. **Heath and moorland** follow, with giant groundsels and lobelias that look prehistoric and grow a few centimetres a decade. **Alpine desert** above that is rock, dust and enormous temperature swings between day and night. **The summit zone** is ice and scree, with very little living in it at all.

TANAPA counts over **179 bird species** and around **140 mammal species** across those zones. Most climbers see almost none of them above the forest, which is the point: the mountain empties as it rises.

## The ice is going

The glaciers on Kibo are the reason the mountain looks the way it does in photographs, and they are close to gone. Research published in the *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* in 2009 found that about **85 per cent** of the ice recorded in 1912 had disappeared by 2007, with the rate of loss accelerating in the later decades.

Projections differ, but not about the direction. Work by the same group suggested most of the remaining ice would be gone by the 2040s, and the United Nations has stated that Kilimanjaro's glaciers are expected to disappear by around 2050. What is left is thin, fractured and retreating each year, which is why a photograph from ten years ago no longer matches what you see.

The cause is argued over more than the loss is. Warming is part of it; so is a drier atmosphere since the late nineteenth century, which starves the ice of the snowfall that would renew it and exposes it to sunlight that turns it straight to vapour.

## The people who carry it

A climb runs on a crew that usually outnumbers the climbers three or four to one: a lead guide, assistant guides, a cook, and porters carrying tents, food, water and your duffel.

**The park sets a limit of 20 kg per porter**, including their own kit, and it is weighed at the gate. The **Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project** publishes the standards that cheap operators cut: a minimum daily wage — 20,000 shillings a day as of 2024 — payment within two days of coming down, three meals a day, proper tents to sleep in, and cold-weather gear and boots that fit.

This is where a suspiciously cheap climb gets cheap. The park fees are fixed and large, so the only places left to save money are wages, food and equipment for the crew. Asking an operator whether they are KPAP-verified, and what they pay, is a fair question and a revealing one.

Tipping is expected on top of the price, pooled for the crew at the end, and it is a real part of what the crew earns rather than a bonus. KPAP publishes guideline amounts.

## Costs, seasons and what to expect

**A climb is expensive, and most of it is not profit.** TANAPA's published 2023/24 schedule lets you work out the floor. For a non-East African climber the conservation fee is **USD 70 for each day in the park**, camping is **USD 50 a night** (the Marangu huts are USD 60), and there is a one-off **rescue fee of USD 20**. All of it is quoted exclusive of **18 per cent VAT**.

So a standard seven-day Machame climb carries roughly **USD 955 of park fees per climber** before anyone has been paid, a tent has been pitched or a meal cooked: seven days' conservation fee, six nights' camping, the rescue fee, plus VAT. Complete packages are commonly advertised between about **USD 2,000 and 4,500**. Once you know the fees are near a thousand of that, a cheap package stops looking like a bargain and starts looking like a question about who is absorbing the difference — and the answer is almost always the porters.

The fee table is the most recent TANAPA has published and runs to 30 June 2024, so treat the figures as a sound floor rather than today's exact price.

**Seasons.** January to mid-March is warmer and clearer; June to October is drier and busier. The long rains of April and May, and the short rains in November, make for wet forest and snow higher up — Rongai, on the northern side, is the driest option then.

**Getting there.** Kilimanjaro International Airport sits between [Moshi](https://seeyoutanzania.com/guides/moshi) and [Arusha](https://seeyoutanzania.com/guides/arusha). Gates at Machame, Marangu, Londorossi and Rongai are all an hour or two from Moshi, which is where most climbs are organised and where most climbers sleep before and after.

**What it is actually like:** summit night starts around midnight in the cold, takes six to eight hours to the crater rim, and the descent is longer and harder on the knees than anyone expects. Most people find the walk down, not the walk up, is what hurts the next week.

Note: Park fees are from TANAPA's own 2023/24 tariff schedule and are exclusive of 18 per cent VAT; they may have risen since. Package prices are operator-advertised and vary widely.

## Common questions

### Which country is Mount Kilimanjaro in?

Tanzania. The whole mountain is in Kilimanjaro Region, in the north-east of the country near the border with Kenya, and its summit, Uhuru Peak, is the highest point in Africa at 5,895 m. The nearest town is Moshi.

### How hard is it to climb Kilimanjaro?

Technically it is a walk — no ropes, no climbing skill. The difficulty is altitude: 5,895 m, where there is about half the oxygen of sea level. Fitness helps you enjoy it, but acclimatisation decides whether you get to the top, which is why route length matters more than training.

### Which Kilimanjaro route is best?

For acclimatisation, the Northern Circuit (8–9 days), then Lemosho (7–8). Machame is the popular middle choice. Marangu is often sold as the easy route because it has huts, but its short profile gives poorer odds. Rongai is the driest in the wetter months.

### How many days do you need to climb Kilimanjaro?

Six at an absolute minimum, seven or eight for a realistic chance, nine on the Northern Circuit. Every extra night between 3,000 and 4,500 m improves your odds.

### How much does it cost to climb Kilimanjaro?

Packages are commonly advertised between about USD 2,000 and 4,500 per person, and park fees make up a large share of that. Very cheap climbs usually save money on porters' wages, food and equipment. Tips for the crew are expected on top.

### What is the best time of year to climb Kilimanjaro?

January to mid-March, and June to October. April and May are the long rains and November the short rains; if you climb then, the northern Rongai route is the driest.

### How much weight can a Kilimanjaro porter carry?

The park limits each porter to 20 kg including their own kit, and loads are weighed at the gate. The Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project also sets standards for wages, meals, sleeping tents and cold-weather gear.

### Are there still glaciers on Kilimanjaro?

Yes, but barely. About 85 per cent of the ice present in 1912 had gone by 2007, and projections have the remainder disappearing around the 2040s or 2050s.

## UNESCO World Heritage: Kilimanjaro National Park

For the mountain itself: the highest in Africa and the largest free-standing volcanic mass in the world, snow-capped and standing alone above the plains.

- **Year inscribed:** 1987
- **Type:** Natural site
- **UNESCO criteria:** (vii)
- **Listed area:** 756 km²
- **In danger:** Never listed

From the UNESCO listing:

- It rises **4,877 metres** above the surrounding plains to **5,895 metres** at Uhuru Peak.
- Three volcanic peaks, **Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira**, and five vegetation zones from the lower slopes to the summit.
- In **2005** the park was extended to take in the montane forest, as the World Heritage Committee had recommended.

[All seven sites in Tanzania](https://seeyoutanzania.com/world-heritage) · [UNESCO listing](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/403/)

## Checked against

- [Kilimanjaro National Park — World Heritage List](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/403/), UNESCO
- [Porter treatment and tipping guidelines](https://kiliporters.org/get-involved/tipping-recommendations/), Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project
- [Glacier loss on Kilimanjaro continues unabated (2009)](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0906029106), Thompson et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- [Kilimanjaro National Park — official page](https://www.tanzaniaparks.go.tz/nationalparks/kilimanjaro), TANAPA
- [Tanzania National Parks Tariffs 2023/2024 — schedule to GN No. 490A of 2020](https://www.tanzaniaparks.go.tz/uploads/publications/en-1688147569-TARIFFS%20Design%20202324.pdf), TANAPA
- [Mount Kilimanjaro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kilimanjaro), Wikipedia

## Related

- [Kilimanjaro region guide](https://seeyoutanzania.com/guides/kilimanjaro)
- [All the parks](https://seeyoutanzania.com/parks)
- [World Heritage Sites](https://seeyoutanzania.com/world-heritage)