The Lemosho route is considered the most scenic trail on Kilimanjaro, granting panoramic vistas on various sides of the mountain. As one of the newer routes, Lemosho is a superb choice for your climb. It is our preferred route due to its ideal balance of low crowds, beautiful scenery and a high summit success rate. Unique Planet Safaris specializes in guiding on the Lemosho route. Most of our clients climb Kilimanjaro using this route and they consistently report that they loved it. Thus, Lemosho is highly recommended.
The size of both the selected Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater national parks, make them a perfect choice for our shorter safaris, or a photographic safari.
The route approaches Mount Kilimanjaro from the west, beginning with a long drive from Moshi to Londorossi Gate. From there, the first two days are spent trekking through the rain forest to Shira Ridge. The Lemosho route crosses the entire Shira Plateau from west to east in a pleasant, relatively flat hike. Crowds are low until the route joins the Machame route near Lava Tower. Then the route traverses underneath Kilimanjaro’s Southern Ice Field on a path known as the Southern Circuit before summiting from Barafu. Descent is made via the Mweka route.
Unique Planet Safaris offers Lemosho as an eight day group climb or as a seven to eight day private climb. The seven day variation combines days five and six, going from Barranco Camp to Barafu Camp without staying at Karanga. A nine day variation that includes an overnight at Crater Camp is available as a private climb by special request.
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After an early breakfast (07.00hrs), you leave the hotel one hour later to arrive at the Londorosi Gate to complete formalities around 11.00hrs, and in time to have your picnic lunch. After Londorosi, you have a short drive to the start-point of today’s walk. Today your walk is a distance of 7 km/4 miles, with an expected 3.5 to 4 hours of walking time.Your starting altitude is some 2,100 metres and you finish at 2,650 metres. Your approach to the mountain using the Lemosho Route is from the west and some people say this provides the best views of Kilimanjaro. At the start of your walk, you may be lucky enough to spy some colobus or blue monkeys, though an encounter with buffalo, elephant or leopard – while possible – would be rare nowadays. Your walk, steadily upwards, is a wonderful experience, with fantastic forest and some really colourful flowers.
You will soon become used to the early, 07.00hrs breakfast and your departure time today is at 08.00hrs. Although your walking distance is only slightly longer than yesterday, today you will be ascending from 2,650 metres to 3,610 metres and you expect a longer walking time of between 4.5 and 5 hours. Indeed, you start climbing straightaway, to the top of a ridge as you head eastwards and upwards. Today, the trees of your first day thin out, you eventually leave the forest environment behind as you move onto the moorland. From here, you are able to get your first view of both the Shira Plateau and mighty Kibo itself.As ever, you should concentrate on walking pole pole (slowly) to reduce the chances of feeling unwell. Your direction is largely eastwards, picnic lunch is taken around 13.00hrs. Walking is steep at first after lunch, but then flattens and with the snow-topped Kibo ahead of you, you descend slightly to the Shira 1 Camp. Arriving at around 16.00hrs, there will be some welcome resting time before dinner, which will be served at 18.30hrs.
Today you potentially have less climbing to do than yesterday, so you celebrate (!) with a later breakfast, at the leisurely hour of 08.00 and a departure about one hour later. We say ‘potentially’ as your guide will explain that today you have the option of trekking via the Shira Cathedral, depending on how you are feeling (see below). The standard walking distance you cover today will be about 7 km/4 miles. It is a steady, uphill climb and you should expect about 3.5 to 4 hours of walk time in total.
You set off first in a south-eastern direction across the moor and heathland of the Shira Plateau. Buffalo, dik-dik and klipspringer graze here and can occasionally be seen. By this standard route, you intend to reach Shira 2 Camp 3,850 metres – which is also known as Shira Huts – by 13.00hrs, in time to be served a cooked lunch. Dinner tonight will be at 18.00hrs.(As we mentioned above, you will be given the option today of diverting via the Shira Cathedral (3,872 metres, or 12703 feet). This involves more walking, but your extra hours of trekking will be rewarded with stunning panoramic views of the plateau and beyond. Your guide will discuss this option with you in detail).
Today you are back to your early, 07.00hrs breakfast time, ready for 08.30hrs departure. You have around 10 km/6 miles to cover, but although you will finish your day only 50 metres higher than you started it, in between you have to climb to the foot of the Lava Tower (4,600 metres) before you then descend once more, down to Baranco Camp 3,900 metres for your overnight stop.
You can expect a total of around 6.5 to 7 hours of walking, during which time you leave the Shira Ridge. The Lemosho Route joins up with the more popular Machame trail, which will make it more crowded! The scenery today changes to predominantly Alpine desert. Your picnic lunch will be at 13.00hrs, arrival at Baranco around 16.00hrs and dinner at about 19.00hrs
You breakfast slightly later (07.30hrs) with a departure time from camp scheduled for 08.30hrs. Today’s walk is actually quite short, being only 4 km/2 miles but it will still take between 3.5 and 4 hours of trekking time. You will break for cooked lunch at around 13.00hrs on reaching Karanga 3,995 metres and have the afternoon to enjoy the views before eating your dinner at 18.00hrs.At the beginning of the day, you encounter the hardest part of today’s stage as you have to scramble up the near-vertical face of the Baranco Wall (also commonly referred to as the ‘Breakfast Wall’ as you tackle it right after your breakfast!).
At the top of this climb, you will be rewarded with views of the Heim Glacier. After this, the rest of today’s walk becomes a bit easier as you first gradually descend to the gully below, and into the cold but beautiful Karanga Valley. You then continue and finally climb up a steep series of zig-zags until reaching the Karanga Camp 3,995 metres. Your overall altitude gain today is only 95 metres.
Another short day -in terms of distance – begins with your breakfast at the camp at 07.30hrs and another 08.30hrs departure. Today you will ascend about 670 metres in a distance of around 5 km/3 miles and walking time once again is between 3.5 and 4 hours.You will be aiming to arrive at the Barafu Camp 4,673 metres by 13.00hrs, when you will be rewarded with a cooked lunch. (With tomorrow being the summit day, it will be important to relax and prepare for the hard work ahead.) Dinner tonight is served at 17.30hrs, giving you time to get to bed early.
After leaving Karanga, today’s stage climbs steadily, passing through barren, rocky landscape, with the Decken and Kersten glaciers visible away to your left. At the top of the climb, the landscape remains bleak as you descend into a valley and you get your first sight of another glacier, Rebmann. At the end of this valley is today’s goal, the Barafu Camp, at which you arrive after a short, steep scramble and a walk.
Today is the most challenging day, but hopefully with the great sense of achievement of reaching your goal – the summit of Kilimanjaro! Your schedule for your ‘Summit Day’ is necessarily very different to your other days on the mountain. Rising at 23.00hrs, you take your tea and biscuits (23.30hrs) before a midnight departure.The day starts with the long, tough climb from Barafu at 4,673 metres to Stella Point at 5,756 metres; for some of this you will be walking on scree, making your trek more difficult.
From Stella Point, there is still another 139 metres of ascent and 45 minutes’ walk to the summit. Your goal is to reach the summit by around 07.00hrs then celebrate reaching the top, take your precious photos and enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience. After the summit (5,895 metres), you return to Barafu (4,673 metres), where you rest for a couple of hours, take a brunch and then leave again at 13.30hrs to continue to descend to Mweka Camp (3,100 metres) where you spend the night.
You would expect to arrive there at 17.00hrs and take your dinner at 19.00hrs. (In total, you cover around 17 km/10 miles today with about 11-14 hours of walking – tough going, but with your objective hopefully achieved!)
After breakfast, we continue the descent down to the Mweka Park Gate to receive your summit certificates. At lower elevations, it can be wet and muddy. Gaiters and trekking poles will help. Shorts and t-shirts will probably be plenty to wear (keep rain gear and warmer clothing handy). From the gate, you continue another hour to Mweka Village. A vehicle will meet you at Mweka village to drive you back to hotel in Moshi.
Although you still have 10 km/6 miles to walk, departure is at a leisurely 09.00hrs and you descend down to the Mweka Gate which sits at an altitude of 1,640 metres. There, you will be served a cooked lunch at midday and be presented with your hard-earned certificate. Your transport will be waiting to bring you back to your hotel in Moshi, where you can choose to relax – or, if you have any energy left, to celebrate!
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