Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro: How Hard It Is and How the Climb Works

No Technical Climbing, but a Licensed Guide Is Required

Adventure Consultants states plainly that no technical climbing or rope skills are required on Kilimanjaro. You hike. The paths are walking trails, and the Barranco Wall is the best-known scramble, walked with a guide in front of you. What the mountain does demand is days of sustained walking at height.

Park rules require climbers to enter through authorised gates with a licensed guide and to book through licensed operators, according to Footslopes Tours. You cannot climb Kilimanjaro solo. Every booking on this site is a guided trip, and the crew behind you is covered in a day on the mountain.

The minimum permit age is 10 years per Wikipedia, although it also records a 7-year-old, Keats Boyd, summited in 2008. Individual tours set their own bands: the Machame Route 6 Days books ages 16 to 80, the Lemosho Route 7 Days books 13 to 95 with an adult on the booking. The oldest recorded summiteer, Anne Lorimor, was 89 years and 37 days old per Wikipedia. Altezza Travel lists the climb as not recommended for pregnant travellers, people with spinal injuries or poor cardiovascular health.

Hill walking, swimming, light running or biking and gym strength work are the training Adventure Consultants recommends. The route you pick shapes everything else, and the trade-offs live on Kilimanjaro routes.

Altitude Is the Real Difficulty

Wikipedia classifies anything above 5,500 m as extreme altitude, and Uhuru Peak sits at 5,895 m (19,341 ft). Adventure Consultants says most people begin to feel the effects above 3,500 m. SummitClimb adds that above 5,300 m the body can no longer acclimatise permanently, so summit night is a race against a clock your body is losing.

The study figures are sobering and worth reading before you book. Wikipedia reports a retrospective study of 917 Lemosho and Machame climbers in which 70.4 percent had acute mountain sickness. A July and August 2005 study found 77 percent of climbers had AMS and only 61.3 percent reached the summit. Acute mountain sickness starts with a headache plus nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite or fatigue. The severe forms, HAPE (fluid in the lungs) and HACE (swelling of the brain), can be fatal, and Wikipedia says immediate descent is the only definite and reliable treatment.

The practical advice attached to these numbers is consistent across operators. Altezza Travel tells climbers to avoid alcohol and caffeine, drink over 4 litres of water daily and consult a doctor about Diamox (acetazolamide, 125 mg twice daily per the CDC figure Wikipedia cites) before the trip. Wikipedia says sleeping altitude should not rise more than 300 m (1,000 ft) per day, which is exactly why longer itineraries succeed more often. Operators such as the booking platform listings for Zara Tours include pulse oximeters and a first aid kit, and some, like ZAFS Tours and Habari Adventure, carry emergency oxygen. A review quoted by Zara Tanzania Adventures recommends testing oxygen saturation and pulse daily.

How long you should spend on the mountain is its own question, answered on how long to climb Kilimanjaro.

The Crew Around You

A Kilimanjaro climb is a supported expedition. Duma Explorer lists a typical crew for two climbers as 1 lead guide, 1 assistant guide, 1 cook and 6 to 7 porters, and Mountkilimanjaroguide.com says groups typically have 3 to 5 staff per climber. Wikipedia counted about 11,000 guides, porters and cooks working on the mountain in 2007.

KPAP, the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project founded in 2003, requires at least three porters per climber on most routes and two on Marangu, and caps each porter's load at 20 kg (about 44 lb) excluding personal kit, though SummitClimb says porters may carry up to 18 kg as regulated by the national park. The table below compares the roles and where each figure comes from.

Hiking Hours, Meals and Sleeping

A normal trekking day starts with breakfast at camp, then a day of walking with a lunch break. The opening stage of Machame, Machame Gate to Machame Camp, is quoted by operators at 11 km in 5 to 7 hours, though another operator gives about 18 km, so stage lengths are disputed. Altezza Travel schedules short acclimatisation hikes each afternoon, such as 200 to 300 m of gain towards Lava Tower after reaching camp, and says the guide may skip Lava Tower (4,630 m) and use the porter trail, topping out at about 4,400 m, if someone is not acclimatising.

Meals are cooked by the crew. Altezza Travel supplies North Face VE-25 tents shared by two hikers plus group dining equipment. Sleeping is in tents on every route except Marangu. Marangu is the only route with hut accommodation, per Wikipedia, climbing through Mandara Hut at 2,743 m, Horombo Hut at 3,760 m (3,720 m per Duma Explorer) and Kibo Hut at 4,730 m, with an optional acclimatisation day at Horombo.

Where the day takes you depends entirely on the path. The full comparison of routes is on Kilimanjaro routes, and what the nights cost is on cost to climb Kilimanjaro.

Midnight Start, Sunrise at Stella Point

Base camps sit typically around 4,600 to 4,800 m per Follow Alice, at places like Barafu Camp (4,640 m) or Kibo Hut. From there the summit push starts in the middle of the night. Follow Alice schedules an 11:00 pm wake-up and a midnight start. Nafika Tours wakes climbers at midnight for tea and a light breakfast, then allows 4 to 5 hours to reach Stella Point at sunrise. Footslopes Tours puts the start between 11 pm and midnight with 6 to 8 hours to Stella Point. Zara Tours' Marangu itinerary leaves at 1 AM and targets Uhuru Peak by about 9 AM, and on Rongai it wakes climbers around midnight, reaching Gilman's Point after about six hours. On Marangu the scree climb goes to Gilman's Point (5,681 m per Wikipedia) and then around the crater rim to Uhuru Peak, about two hours for able climbers.

The distances are brutal for the hour. Altezza Travel states the Machame summit day covers 15 km and takes 8 to 12 hours. SummitClimb says the summit climb takes 6 to 10 hours depending on fitness, plus 2 to 4 hours on the final ascent. Stella Point is given as 5,756 m by Follow Alice and Nafika Tours, and it is about one hour from Stella Point to Uhuru Peak, per Nafika Tours, with Follow Alice saying about 30 minutes.

It is cold and windy above 5,000 m in the dark, which is why operators insist on layered clothing, gloves and a head torch. Altezza Travel assigns one guide for every two climbers on summit night specifically so pacing and health checks stay tight. Follow Alice says to expect only about 15 minutes at the summit before descending.

The descent is not a rest. Altezza Travel notes that 90 percent of accidents occur on the descent, including all broken limbs, and warns of toenail damage. Nafika Tours quotes 12 to 15 hours of hiking on summit day including the descent to Millennium Camp (about 3,800 to 3,950 m depending on source), then a couple of hours to Mweka Gate the next day. The season you choose changes the conditions you will face, covered on best time to climb Kilimanjaro.

What the Numbers Say, and Why They Disagree

Wikipedia says 70 to 80 percent of the roughly 50,000 trekkers a year succeed on average. Follow Alice cites a 2006 park-authority dataset with an overall success rate of 45 percent, split 27 percent on 5-day, 44 percent on 6-day, 64 percent on 7-day and 85 percent on 8-day itineraries, and says itself that this data is unverified and not updated. SummitClimb claims over 98 percent to Uhuru Peak. These cannot all be right: Follow Alice notes that group size, itinerary length, guide practices and the definition of summit all change quoted rates, and Duma Explorer says about 35,000 attempts a year produce an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 summits, with operator rates self-reported and unaudited.

By route, Duma Explorer claims about 90 percent on Lemosho, 85 percent on 7-day Machame, 50 to 80 percent on Marangu, about 80 percent on 7-day Rongai, above 90 percent on the Northern Circuit and about 70 percent on Umbwe. The Davies et al. 2009 Marangu study found 111 of 181 trekkers with complete data, 61 percent, reached the summit. Climb Mount Kilimanjaro says Marangu has the lowest summit success of the routes, driven by its shortest itinerary.

The single biggest lever is days on the mountain. Duma Explorer averages 27 to 35 percent for 5 days, 50 to 73 percent for 6, 80 to 85 percent for 7, over 90 percent for 8 and 90 to 95 percent for 9. Much Better Adventures says a seven-day Machame has a much higher success rate than a six-day one, and Altezza Travel says dry-season climbs succeed more often because of better weather. Longer trips cost more, and the arithmetic is on cost to climb Kilimanjaro.

Three bookable climbs show the range. The 8-day Lemosho Route 8 Days costs $3,200 per person and adds an acclimatisation day. The 7-day Machame Route 7 Days costs $2,425 per person with daily health checks. The 8-day Northern Circuit Route 8 Days costs $4,554 per person on the longest route at about 88 to 90 km. Training (hill walking, swimming, light running or biking and gym strength work, per Adventure Consultants) and full gear, hireable from operators like Altezza Travel and Zara Tours, close the remaining gap.