Kilimanjaro Machame Route 2021

Meet & Greet at Kilimanjaro International Airport and transfer to Lake Duluti Lodge, your accommodation in Arusha. After lunch, the afternoon is free for you to find the best way to battle the jet lag. You can relax by the pool, get a massage in the hotel spa or stay active with a walk around lake Duluti and a coffee tour. Afternoon tea and snacks will be served, the team dinner and briefing takes place around 8:30pm.

We leave Arusha at 8:30am for Machame Gate with the porters, guides and cooks who will spend the next seven days trekking with us up to Uhuru Peak. The drive through coffee farms and villages to Machame Gate takes about 1.5 hours. Once we arrive, we will wait at the gate while the guides register our climb and the porters make final preparations. Your first day’s destination is Machame Camp. Each day, porters and cooks will walk ahead to set up the camp in time for our arrival. On this first day, we will hike through the moss-covered trees of Kilimanjaro’s beautiful cloud forest.

There are some uphill sections on todays trek although it is considered to be the easiest day on the Machame Route. Enjoy several viewpoints from which we can see the plains and forests below, Kibo and Mawenzi peaks above. As we gain altitude, notice the change in vegetation. The trees diminish in size giving way to Kilimanjaro’s famous high altitude plants, Scenecio Kilimanjari and Lobelia Deckenii. We hike up the Shira Plateau after lunch, created when Kibo’s lava flows filled the Shira crater. Shira Camp is where we will relax for the rest of the day and enjoy the sunset behind Meru peak in the distance.

This ‘up and down day’ ends with an elevation gain of only 360ft/110m, but by early afternoon we will have climbed 2.260ft/690m to a height of 14.860ft/4.530m before beginning our descent to Barranco Camp. This day is crucial for acclimatization. After breakfast, we hike East on the Shira Plateau before reaching the junction for the Shira and Lemosho Routes. We continue on through the barren landscape before stopping for lunch at the Lava Tower, a 300-foot lava formation jutting out of the mountainside. We descend down to Barranco Camp which is considered to be the most scenic campsite on the Machame Route.

We leave Barranco Camp after breakfast for Karanga Valley. The day begins with a 1.5 hours scramble up Barranco Wall. This is the hardest part of the day and in some places you will have to use your hands to pull your body up. After reaching the top we make a short descent into the greener Karanga Valley. We generally camp on the ridge above the valley to allow for greater acclimatization. When we get to camp it is shower time! A hot water bucket shower is provided for each team member at their convenience.

After breakfast, we begin the hike to Barafu Camp. On the way to Barafu, we can see several of Kibo’s glaciers as well as the junction that connects the descent route, Mweka, with the Machame trail. Today we will hike by the Heim, Kersten and Decken glaciers. Although the trail to Barafu passes through alpine desert with little vegetation, Barafu Camp offers stunning views of Kibo and Mawenzi peaks. We will try to sleep as soon as we finish dinner to be rested for our summit push starting around midnight.

The summit push! Around midnight we begin the final ascent to Uhuru Peak, the highest point in Africa. For the next six hours we will hike by the light of our headlamps. The ascent to the crater rim is the most challenging part of the entire trek. The trail is steep until we reach the crater rim at Stella Point. Despite the distance being relatively short, progress is slow because there is less than half the oxygen compared to sea level! The hike from Stella Point to Uhuru Peak is a gradual climb with magical views as the sun begins to rise over the horizon. The altitude makes it a tiring undertaking and the crater rim path takes approximately 45 minutes. We will spend some time on the summit to take lots of pictures and hopefully get to enjoy the views before beginning the descent to Mweka Camp. At Barafu Camp we have a big brunch as a reward for the hardships of the night. After one hour of resting in the tents we have another 3 hours to go before reaching Mweka Camp for our last night on the mountain…time to celebrate!!! Camp is pitched at 10.1070 ft./3.100m.

After an early breakfast the final descent takes us through the lower heath section that quickly turns into rainforest. Our time on Kilimanjaro ends at Mweka Gate where the vehicle will be waiting to transfer us back to Arusha for lunch at Lake Duluti Lodge. You can spent the rest of the day relaxing and recovering from the climb at the pool or in the spa. We are going to have a big farewell dinner around 8pm where we present the summit certificates and look at some pictures.