6-Day Kilimanjaro Trek via Marangu Route to Uhuru Peak

• Get picked up from the hotel and drive to Marangu Gate. As you travel toward 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 the park buildings behind and begin ascending through coffee plantations and thick rainforest to Mandara Hut.

• While trekking through the forest, you may see brightly coloured birds, Columbus monkeys as well as other species of monkeys, along with mosses, lichens, and flowers such as delicate orchids. If the skies are clear, you can also see the town of Moshi lying at the edge of the plain far below.

Dinner and overnight.

• Your second day on the mountain starts just after breakfast with a steep climb through the last stretch of rainforest, which soon gives way to a rolling alpine meadow dotted with giant heather.

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

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

Dinner and overnight at Horombo Hut.

• This day gives you the opportunity to acclimatise step by step to the altitude. It is said that an acclimatisation day effectively doubles the chance of succeeding in reaching the summit, so the time is well spent.

• It is certainly not wasted, as there are several walks you can take within the locality of the hut, but you will take the main acclimatisation walk that leads to the base of Mawenzi Peak, the dramatic eastern summit of Kilimanjaro.

• The walk takes 4-5 hours round trip and reaches an altitude of 4600 m.

Return to Horombo Hut for dinner and overnight.

• The scenery becomes rockier and rougher as you leave for Kibo. Everlasting flowers and other bizarre alpine plants, massive groundsels, and lobelias appear in the sparse moorland. The trail up to Kibo takes between five and seven hours.

• Skirt Mawenzi Peak as you pass the Last Water point, 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 (4705 m), a dry-stone-walled hut with dorms and limited facilities.

• Tonight, prepare for tomorrow's final assault to the summit. Repack and leave any non-essential items with the porters; you need to summon all your energy to reach the summit, so there is no point in carrying anything you do not 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 still 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.

• The gradient becomes steeper, and after another three hours - the hardest stretch of the climb - you should reach the crater rim at Johanne's Notch.

• From here, it is a short scramble to Gillman's Point (5685 m) in time for dawn. Your reward is the dramatic spectacle of the sun rising over the ice fields and craggy peaks of Mawenzi - a profusion of colours and shapes that makes 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 (5896 m).

• Your descent, approximately 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)

• Your 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 to the airport or other destinations in Tanzania.