Drive from your Hotel to the Mount Kilimanjaro National Park Gate. Once you reach the park gate, you will sign in at the Park office and make your final preparations to start the climb. Our path takes us through rain forest on a winding trail up a ridge to Machame Camp where we will camp overnight.

After breakfast, we start walking, leaving the rainforest behind, and continue our ascent, crossing a small valley and up to a steep rocky ridge, covered with heath. Our route now turns west onto a river gorge. Dinner and overnight at Shira campsite.

This is a very important day for acclimatization and will help your body prepare for summit day. This will be our toughest day so far and you may start to feel the symptoms of altitude. We will ascend to Lava Tower at 4,600 m and take our lunch there to acclimatize. Following this we descend to spend the night at Barranco campsite. This offers great photographic opportunities of the Western Breach and Breach Wall. The camp is situated in a valley below the Breach and Great Barranco Wall, which will provide you with a memorable sunset while you wait for your dinner.

After breakfast, a short and fun scramble to the top of the Great Barranco Wall! We then traverse over scree ridges to the Karanga Valley (3,930 m) beneath the icefalls of the Heim, Kersten and Decken Glaciers. After climbing out of the Karanga Valley our trail ascends to Barafu Camp (4,600 m) where we will spend the night.

You will be woken at 23:30 with some quick tea and biscuits. We start our trek to the summit between the Rebman and Ratzel glaciers. We will head in a north-westerly direction and ascend through heavy scree towards Stella Point on the crater rim. This is the most mentally and physically challenging part of the trek. At Stella Point (5,732 m), we will stop for a short rest and will be rewarded with the most magnificent sunrise you are ever likely to see (weather permitting). At Uhuru Peak (5,895 m), we will have reached the highest point on Mount Kilimanjaro and the continent of Africa. It can be very cold at night at these elevations, but it will be quite warm by the end of the hiking day. From the summit, we descend down to the Mweka Hut camp site, via Barafu for lunch. Trekking poles will be needed for the loose gravel going down to Mweka Camp (3,100 m). Later in the evening, we will enjoy our last dinner on the mountain and a well-earned sleep.

We descend 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 be suitable (keep rain gear and warmer clothing handy). A vehicle will meet you to drive you back to the Hotel.