Safaris & Tours - Kilimanjaro - Shira Route

Evening arrival to Kilimanjaro International Airport or Nairobi and we transfer you to your hotel.

This day is designed to give you plenty of time to relax, pack and recoup from the long journey. We will meet you late in the morning for a short climbing orientation. We will give you a climb briefing and answer any questions you may have. We will also do an equipment check with each person to be sure that you are fully prepared.

After breakfast in the morning we will drive approximately one hour and half to the Kilimanjaro National Park gate. We will checking in and register at the gate then, meet the rest of the climbing crew, assistant guides, porters and the cook. From the entrance gate we will hike about 4 hours through the undisturbed forest to our camp for the night. With luck we will be able to see Colobus monkeys and signs of elephants or buffaloes and other forest wildlife on our hike to camp.

We will start hiking very early in the morning through the forest with opportunities of spotting some of the plentiful game and birdlife. We will hike through the Montane and the Hagenia forest zones and experience the unique environmental differences that characterize these equatorial zones.

We will start the day by going down for about 2 hrs through dusty and rock trails to the Great Barranco Valley at 13,000ft. Then we will start hiking up the Great Barranco wall 'a massive rock wall 500 feet high' for an hour and half to the top where you will have a very good view of the Great Barranco Valley. We will hike up and down the greener valley which is the last water point to the mountain and our campsite will be up on the other side of the valley.

We will start the day with a short but steep uphill climb across barren landscape with lots of boulders and shattered rocks. We will see the Decken glaciers on our left. We will keep hiking across the ridge until we reach a rocky section. We will hike for about one and half on a very rocky section to our next overnight camp which will be on large rocks with very steep cliff faces. We will arrive at the camp fairly very early, which will give us an opportunity to climb up at least 1000ft and back to camp as our acclimatization plan.

We will start the climb very early in the morning and climb in the day light through steep rocks for 2 hours before we enter a snow covered areas where you can see glaciers above. It will take us another 2 hours climb to Stella Point on the rim of the main crater, where the lava fields are like loose sand. If still we have the energy on top, we can explore the inner crater and the ash pit before moving to our highest camp on the crater floor. This spectacular high camp is next to the Furtwrangler Glaciers, with stunning view westward towards Mount Meru and the setting African sun. The high altitude of crater camp makes it a physically demanding experience, but the reward is a radical scene of towering glaciers rising from the harsh rock landscapes.

We will start our ascent to the summit (19,340') early enough in the morning to be on the summit by 9:00am.  This final ascent is only 800 feet and can be undertaken after sunrise and a leisurely breakfast or just early enough to be at the summit during sunrise. This is quite a contrast to the 3,000 feet slog required to summit via all the other ascent routes on Kilimanjaro. The rewards of seeing the summit crater glaciers and standing on Africa's highest peak are well worth the efforts. After taking in the view from Uhuru Peak we will begin the long descent through Barafu Hut and down to our final camp near Mweka Hut.

Today's hike will take us about 4 to 5 hours to make the 4,500 feet descent to the park gate. We will check out and receive Kilimanjaro climbing certificate at the park gate office, take lunch. and say goodbye to our mountain staff. After lunch we will drive through very beautiful coffee plantations and small villages of the Chagga people back to Arusha, for a nice hot shower or time to relax, ready for departure home or onto wildlife safari the next day.