6 Days Mount Kilimanjaro Rongai Route: The Wilderness Approach

After breakfast you drive to register at the Marangu park gate, then transfer roughly two and a half hours to the Rongai trailhead. You meet your guide and porters and start walking from Nale Moru village. A small winding path crosses maize fields, enters pine forest and climbs gently through it. Nothing about today is steep; it is a pleasant walk through good country. The first camp is at First Cave, around 2,600m, where there is a toilet and a wooden table with benches but no hut. Water is found just down the trail below camp.

Hiking time: 5 hours
Distance: about 8 km
Habitat: Montane forest

The trail climbs on towards Kibo, passing Second Cave at 3,450m before reaching Kikelewa Cave at roughly 3,600m. The terrain opens up here and you get your first real sense of the scale of the mountain. Water comes from the stream below camp, a short walk downhill. Overnight at Kikelewa Caves.

Hiking time: 6 to 7 hours
Habitat: Moorland

A short but steep climb up grassy slopes, with excellent views back across this quiet side of the mountain. The vegetation gives out shortly before camp at Mawenzi Tarn, set directly beneath the spires of Mawenzi. The afternoon is for acclimatising and walking the area around camp.

Hiking time: 3 to 4 hours
Habitat: Moorland

You continue up the east side of Kibo, crossing the saddle between Mawenzi and Kibo, four to five hours to Kibo Hut. The rest of the day is deliberately quiet: rest and prepare, because the final ascent starts around midnight. Overnight at Kibo camp.

Hiking time: 4 to 5 hours
Habitat: Alpine desert

You are up around 23:30 for tea and biscuits, then out into the dark. This is where it gets genuinely hard. The first stretch is a rocky path to Hans Meyer Cave at 5,150m, a good place to rest. The path then zigzags up to Gillman’s Point at 5,681m on the crater rim, very steep and deep in stone scree, and it is the most demanding section of the whole route. Move slowly. From Gillman’s you will usually have snow all the way round to Uhuru Peak at 5,895m. How long you can stay at the top for photographs depends entirely on the weather, and then it is a three-hour descent to Kibo Hut. After a short rest you gather your gear and drop another three hours to Horombo. Around fourteen hours of walking in total, so be ready for a very long day, and a well-earned last dinner on the mountain.

Hiking time: 8 hours to Uhuru, 6 hours down to Horombo
Distance: 6 km ascent, 21 km descent
Habitat: Stone scree and ice-capped summit

After breakfast you continue down, about six hours, passing Mandara Hut and on to Marangu gate. You sign the register there, and that is where certificates are issued: green for climbers who reached Gillman’s Point at 5,681m, gold for those who stood on Uhuru Peak at 5,895m. Then the drive back to Arusha for a long-overdue hot shower, dinner and whatever celebration you have in you. Hotel on bed and breakfast.

Hiking time: 6 hours
Distance: about 27 km