• Get picked up from the hotel and drive to Marangu Gate. As you drive towards the gate, enjoy excellent views of the mountain.

• Meet your team of guides and porters at the gate.

• Once the registration process is complete, leave behind the park buildings to start ascending through coffee plantations and thick rain forests to Mandara Hut.

• While trekking through the forest, you could see bright colored birds, Columbus as well as other species of monkeys, and mosses, lichens and flowers like delicate orchids. If the skies are clear, you can see the town of Moshi lying at the edge of the plain, further down.

Dinner and overnight.

• Second day on the mountain starts just after breakfast with a steep climb through the last swathe of rain forest, though this soon gives way to a rolling alpine meadow dotted with giant heather.

• Once you leave the forest sunshade, Kilimanjaro’s two peaks - snow covered Kibo and rocky Mawenzi – lie straight ahead, overlooking the skyline. Further on, you will cross a zone of open moorland with diminutive vegetation.

• Today, you will gain roughly 1000m altitude; the walk can take five to seven hours depending on your pace.

Dinner and overstay at Horombo Huts.

• This day provides an opportunity for you to acclimatise step by step to the altitude. It is said that an acclimatization day effectively doubles the chance of succession to reach the summit, thus the time is well spent!

• It is not precisely wasted as there are several walks you can take, within the locality of the hut, but we will take the most acclimatization walk which leads you to the base of Mawenzi Peak - the dramatic eastern summit of Kilimanjaro.

• Walk takes 4-5 hours - round trip - and will go till an altitude of 4600 mts.

Return back to Horombo Hut for dinner and overnight.

• Scenery turns out to be more rocky and rough as you leave for Kibo; everlasting flower and other bizarre alpine plants, massive groundsels and lobelias appear in the sparse moorland. The trail up to Kibo will take between five and seven hours.

• Skirt Mawenzi Peak as you pass the Last Water point and then cross a stark, almost lunar landscape to the Saddle - a wide tundra desert between the two peaks of Mawenzi and Kibo. Here you will start getting fantastic views of the upper ranges of the mountain before arriving at Kibo Hut (4705m), a dry-stone-walled hut with dorms and limited facilities.

• Tonight, we will prepare for tomorrow’s final assault – the summit. Re-pack to leave any non-essential items with the porters; you need to summon all your energy to get to the summit, so there’s absolutely no point in carrying anything you don’t need!

• An early night is imperative as you must make a midnight start in order to reach the summit in the morning before the cloud cover settles, and then have time to get back down to the hut.

Overnight stay at Kibo Hut for 1 night.

(Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner)

• This is a long and demanding day! The guides wake you soon after midnight and you start out in the darkness, zigzagging up a long scree slope by the light of your flashlight, in the extreme cold.

• At this time of day, the scree is still frozen – which makes it easier to walk on. After roughly two hours, you should reach Hans Meyer’s Cave – named after the German geologist who made the first successful ascent in 1889 – where he found the remains of a frozen leopard.

• Gradient gets steeper and three hours on (this is the hardest stretch of the climb) you should reach the crater rim at Johanne’s Notch.

• From here, it’s a short scramble to Gillman’s Point (5685m) in time for dawn. Your reward is the dramatic spectacle of the sun rising over the ice fields and craggy peaks of Mawenzi – the profusion of colours and shapes make all the suffering seem worthwhile.

• For those who still have the energy and drive, it takes another couple of hours along the crater rim to reach Uhuru (Freedom) Peak (5896m).

• Your descent (approx. 3 hours) retraces the route back down, past Kibo Hut to Horombo Hut, for a well-deserved rest.

Overnight stay at Horombo Hut for 1 night.

(Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner)

• Pace quickens as you continue your triumphant way back down, across the alpine meadow and past Mandara Hut, through the rainforest to Marangu Gate.

• At the gate, board the vehicle for the journey back to Moshi for a day room or overnight stay, before departure from the airport or other destinations in Tanzania.