Borders Of Adventure

Leading Culture and Adventure Travel Blog by Becki Enright. Looking at the world with a different angle to change perceptions of misunderstood places, for the best in travel.

Trekkers walking in a line up a rocky slope on Mt.Kilimanjaro.

Adventure Travel, Tanzania

What it’s Like to Trek the Kilimanjaro Lemosho Route in 8 Days

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Dramatically scenic as it is demanding, trekking the Kilimanjaro Lemosho Route charts a scenic climb on the mountain’s lesser-taken trail.

The journey through the five-tiered geographical system of Mount Kilimanjaro, from humid rainforest tropics to rocky desert plains to the gruelling climb to the glacier-capped, bitterly cold crater summit, is a challenge further determined by your chosen trekking trail. 

One of four commercial Kilimanjaro routes to Africa’s tallest mountain at 5,895 meters, the longer Lemosho Route has advantages. Its extended trail makes the climb slower, granting it a higher success rate of reaching the summit due to added altitude acclimatisation time. It takes six days to reach the Barafu Camp at the summit foot, where you summit on the morning of the seventh day before slowly working down the mountain to the Mweka Camp, exiting the national park at Mweka Gate on day eight. 

A lesser-chosen trail with fewer people, it’s also considered one of the most beautiful pathways to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro because of its subtle detours from the popular routes of Marangu and Macheme. 

This day-by-day account of the Lemosho Route in 8 days shows the highs and lows of one of the world’s most remarkable treks and what you can expect as the mountain terrain changes. 

A small trekking group climbing Kilimanjaro moorland with a view of the snow-capped Kibo Peak ahead.

How to Trek the Kilimanjaro Lemosho Route in 8 Days

Kilimanjaro Lemosho Trek: Snapshot

I booked the G Adventures Lemosho tour, which includes the 8-day trek and the hotel in Moshi on either side. This cost includes tents, food, guides and porters.

Travel to and from Moshi and Kilimanjaro Airport at the start and end of the trip, alongside all food and drink costs outside the trek days, are not included.

Cost

Approximately €2500 – €3000.

  • 8-day guided group trek up Mt Kilimanjaro’s Lemosho Route with local guides, cooks and porters.
  • Additional “acclimatization day” during ascent.
  • All Kilimanjaro National Park permits and fees.
  • All transport between destinations and to/from included activities.
  • Excludes cost of flights, insurance and trekking gear.
  • You should budget around £300 for tipping and souvenirs.

Trek Planning

If you are still choosing a route or need top tips on how to get prepared for a successful summit and what to pack, these guides have you covered. 

READ MORE: Kilimanjaro Routes Comparison 

READ MORE: How to Climb Kilimanjaro 

READ MORE: What to Pack for Kilimanjaro

Day-to-Day Guide to the Kilimanjaro Lemosho Route

Two gates, seven camps and one almighty summit – this summary breaks down the kilometres, average hours of trekking, altitude heights and experience of each day.

A trekking map showing the gates and camps on the Kilimanjaro Lemosho Route.

Kilimanjaro Lemosho Route Map

Day 1: Moshi to Lemosho Gate to Mti Mkubwa Camp

  • 3 hours trekking
  • 6km
  • Sleep at 2750m

The first day begins by driving through the villages and lowlands of the Cultivation Zone to the Londorosi Gate at 2250m, where each person in the group must sign in, as do the guides and porters as part of the legal registering of entry to Kilimanjaro National Park.

It’s an excitable atmosphere as small buses of trekking groups enter the gate. Everyone looks fresh, pumped, eager and a little nervous as the conversation between random groups turns to tips and the wishing of luck – you’ll be passing each other many times on this adventure.

Vans with hikers parked and unloading at the Londorosi Gate at the start of the Kilimanjaro climb.

Checked in and officially ready to climb, you then get driven to Lemosho Gate at 2100m for the start of the Lemosho Trail. As the porters unload from the buses and your guides make their official introductions, trepidations intertwine with excitement. There’s no turning back, and the time has finally come to take on this challenge.

Starting easy, this is a short trekking day to get used to a pace and rhythm, passing through lightly humid Montana Forest, whose pathways cut through the thick, emerald green vegetation of the Rainforest Zone, home to the black and white Colobus monkeys. Arriving at Mti Mkubwa Campsite, it is time to get used to camp life ahead. 

Fiver porters carrying green bags on their heads, walk on a orange mud pathway in the Rainforest Zone of Kilimanjaro.

Five people walking on a narrow orange path through a lush, green rainforest zone when climbing Kilimanjaro.

The densely packed trees and green vegetation of the Rainforest Zone when climbing Kilimanjaro.

A cluster of orange tents within a mountain forest.

Our cosy set-up at Mti Mkubwa Camp

Day 2: Mti Mkubwa Camp to Shira 1 Camp

  • 6 hours of trekking
  • 9km
  • Highest point, 3,800m, sleep at 3,610m.

Our wake-up call is 6.20 am for a 7:30 am breakfast and an 8:00 am departure from camp. Every morning, we will begin this early to ensure optimal climbing conditions.

Day two is strenuous but comfortably paced as you head deeper into the Montana Forest for the first 2.5 hours of trekking. Leaving the forest of Kilimanjaro National Park, you then climb into the drier, grassy region and over the Shira ridge on high, rocky paths that form a spine locally dubbed ‘Elephant’s Back’.

A group of trekkers stand upon a high hill looking out over the Kilimanjaro valley and the 'Elephants Back' ridge.

Looking out over the Kilimanjaro valley and the ‘Elephants Back’ ridge.

A panoramic view of the green Kilimanjaro valley bed from an elevated viewpoint of the Shira Ridge.

View of the Kilimanjaro valley from the Shira Ridge.

It’s a perfect rest stop, with panoramic vistas across the plains of Kilimanjaro and time to acclimatize at a higher level before the descent to the Shira Plateau and the trickling stream-side Shira 1 Camp in the Moorland Zone.

Kilimanjaro Climb Rainforest zone turning more dry and rocky as it turns into the grassy Moorland Zone.

Four trekkers makes there way down a hill through the dry, grassy vegetation in the Moorland Zone of the Kilimanjaro trekking trail.

Brown Kilimanjaro Shira 1 Camp Sign next to a mint green octagonal building with iron roof. A small camp can be seen behind them.

A tent on a rocky ledge next to a small stream in the dry grasslands of Kilimanjaro.

A group of porters in front of a camp on the dry-grassy plains of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Day 3: Shira 1 Camp to Shira 2 Camp – Extra Acclimatisation

  • 3 hours of trekking
  • 5km
  • Sleep at 3,850m

Today is a moderate trek across the Shira plateau, across an expanse of wildflowers and scattered boulders, with a view of Kibo Peak. The tricky part ends with a taxing and sharp rocky push to Shira 2 Camp.

A small trekking group climbing Kilimanjaro moorland with a view of the snow-capped Kibo Peak ahead.

A flattened path mark by a boundary of small rocks through a dry-grassy, rock strewn mountain landscape.

A small group of people trekking Kilimanjaro through a orange pathway through rocks, green bushes with yellow and wildflowers.

A man in blue and a woman in orange standing at the brown "Shira II Camp" Kilimanjaro sign with tents and people in the background shrouded in mist.

Orange tents set up in rocky landscape and small green bushes at the Kilimanjaro Shira 2 Camp.

Following lunch its time for a 1-2 hour acclimatisation walk in the area – a chance to see Shira Cathedral where tribes used to perform sacrifices (that stopped once the mountain became a national park).

Day 4: Shira 2 Camp to Barranco Camp

  • 6 hours of trekking
  • 10km
  • Highest point, 4,600m, sleep at 3,995m

It’s a long, arduous three to four-hour 7km climb to the Lava tower through rocky scree and into the Alpine Desert Zone. A hinterland with scattered boulders dusted with orange moss that turns to a greying moonscape. A burial ground for dead butterflies swept off course here, where they meet their end.

Porters carrying large green sacks walk over the rocky Shira Cathedral ridge with a view over the dry green area of the Kilimanjaro Shira 2 Camp.

Trekkers follow porters on a trail through a rocky landscape, towards the Kilimanjaro mountain.

A porter on the right carrying a large, long bag, passes a group of trekkers to the right on a rocky, volcanic landscape of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The black volcanic valley walls of Mount Kilimanjaro, speckled with the tiny colour of trekkers hiking up the steep white-worn path.

A Kilimanjaro guide on the left and three trekkers on the right pull themselves through the thin air towards the rectangular rock known as the Lava Tower.

Lunch at the Lava Tower’s mighty 4,600m is also a spot for acclimatisation – a marker of accomplishment that you’ve made it this far, a little beaten but still determined.

A Kilimanjaro trek group, looking tired, at the Lava Tower Sign with green camp tents set up behind them.

The burnt orange and black rectangular rock known as the Lava Tower, seen on the Kilimanjaro climb.

The two-hour descent begins with a staircase of lofty rocks, which widens to the rock-strewn Great Barranco Valley, dotted with quirky, thick-trunked trees with foliage nests and a lowland shrouded in mist. At Barranco Camp, you sleep elevated on a perch, with the valley to one side and the mighty cliff face of the Barranco Wall on the other.

Four people hiking down a large rocky pathway in Barranco Valley, Kilimanjaro, dotted with quirky, thick-trunked trees.

Three people walk on a light rocky pathway that cuts through a boulder-filled valley of Kilimanjaro lined with quirky, thick-trunked trees with foliage nests.

A man with a large backpack walks towards the colourful tents of the Barranco Camp on dark hillside on the Kilimanjaro trek.

A line of orange tents and a green toilet tent set in the misty, tree valley of Barranco in Kilimanjaro.

Day 5: Barranco Camp to Karanga Camp (Via the Barranco Wall)

  • 4-5 hours of trekking
  • 5km of trekking
  • Sleep at 3,995m

There’s a lot of scaremongering about the Great Barranco Wall that you must climb and clamber up to get further into the Alpine Desert of Kilimanjaro and the expanse of the Karanga Valley.

The colossal volcanic façade stands before you in the early morning light as you watch tiny coloured specks move up like a line of ants, while your guide insists not to think about it too much. The Barranco Wall looms at a steep 257m high, and getting to its cloud-encased flat top is a feat of endurance, balance, strength and the ability to see it as a fun escapade.

The high, dark steep Barranco wall that rises about camp tents, and a part of climbing Kilimanjaro.

It’s one of the most lively and enjoyable parts of the trek – a morning of rock climbing at the hands of guides who are experts in its orientation who will push-pull and aid you with your Spiderman experience. Don’t believe the clickbait videos – unnecessary negativity will hinder you, rather than help you.

A woman in a red jacket and blue backpack clambers over low rocks and vivid green bushes towards a large rock wall where other people are walking.

The start of the Barranco Wall

A guide dressed in grey with a red backpack looks on seriously as trekkers climbs past him on the high Barranco Wall on the Kilimanjaro trek.

Climbing the Barranco Wall, although fun, is still a serious undertaking

A man clambers on steep rock, a woman in a red jacket makes a spiderman pose with her hand while climbing rocks, and a small group of trekkers walk up a large rock wall pathway.

This is what the Barranco Wall climb is like.

After the wall, we took a small stone pathway down the other side of the wall plateau and another change of landscape – bobbing inclines and declines from yellowing wilderness with nothing but strewn rocks and a small line of climbers, leaving the last of the vegetation behind and willing themselves through the approaching steep and scraggy climb up to camp.

A small line of hikers on a pathway through strewn rocks and no vegetation.

A line of trekkers walk on a worn path through a landscape full of boulders, rocks and dry vegetation patches.

Five people hiking Kilimanjaro, up a grey barren path with small dark rocks and towards a flat ridge.

A man wearing black with a red backpack leads the way down a dry mud path on Kilimanjaro mountain, lined with alpine desert trees and orange rocks.

Beyond the think vegetation, a beige worn path lightly snakes up a very steep grey-green rock face on Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Another late afternoon acclimatisation walk rounds off the day, preparing you for the pending summit climb in just over 24 hours.

Four trekkers wearing black, red and blue hike up a rocky scree covered in mist on Kilimanjaro.

As nerves begin to brew at camp and dinner conversation turns more and more to the Summit, the G Fighters put on a show of song and dance to lift our spirits, louder and prouder than anyone else on the site.

Two large green tents, at a campsite set up at the base of the snow-capped Kilimanjaro mountain.

A group of 30 Kilimanjaro porters and guides sing and dance on a mountain slope covered in mist.

Day 6: Karanga Camp to Barafu Camp – Summit Night

  • 3-4 hours of trekking
  • 4km
  • 4,672m at Base Camp

Today is the day you reach Kilimanjaro Base Camp – a rigorous trek through the alpine desert up to Barafu Camp, splayed out like a tented trekking Kingdom full of eager explorers.

Porters, carry large bags on their heads, walk over the rocky volcanic landscape of Mt Kilimanjaro in front or rising mist and the mountain peak.

A Kilimanjaro porter wearing orange and carrying a large grey sack on his back walks through a barren grey-brown landscape strewn with large rocks. Mist rises behind him.

A tall, black volcanic mastif looms under a blue sky. White walking trails, part of the Kilimanjaro trek, stretch from top to bottom.

A woman in a orange jacket and blue backpack follows a line of other trekkers slowly climbing Kilimanjaro's dry, rocky scree.

Even walking through Barafu Camp to our patch was an expedition of over 20 minutes. Base Camp is enormous, and you can feel the collective nervousness across the outcrop as we all wait until close to Midnight to begin the most significant climb of this trip.

Kilimanjaro's snow capped, mist covered Kibo peak stands high on the left next to a bundle of colourful tents at Base Camp to the right.

A man and woman standing and holding hands at the Kilimanjaro National Park Barafu Camp sign. Behind them is Kibo Peak to the left and the tents of camp to the right.

Six orange and three green tents for a small camping ground on the brown, rocky Kilimanjaro Base Camp.

Following an early dinner, we get to bed earlier than usual to prepare for the 10 pm wake-up call, for warm drinks and snack fuelling and an 11 pm departure for the start of the Summit attempt.

Day 7: Barafu Camp to Summit to Mweka Camp

  • 6-7 hours of trekking
  • 4km to  Stella Point, then 1km to Uhuru
  • Stella Point at 5,756m and Uhuru Summit at 5,895m

Reaching the Summit

It’s 11 pm, and we are among the first groups to depart Base Camp to reach the Kilimanjaro Summit in the Arctic Zone as the dawn rises to mark a new day. We’ll reach Uhuru Peak “tomorrow”, but first, we must climb the 1,500m bouldering Kibo, zigzagging slowly to its icy rim and the first climbing marker of Stella Point at 5,756m.

We are lucky to have one guide assigned to each person to carefully watch our every move, step, action and behavioural change. They tell you to stop, sip, eat, slow down, keep going because it’s cold. They ask, how are you feeling? They sing Jambo, Jambo Bwana, Habari Gani, Mzuri Sana, Wageni, Wakaribishwa, Kilimanjaro, Hakuna Matata – the mountain tune that’s one part of the melodic show that accompanies you to the very end.

Maybe the pitch-blackness is deliberate, to not dramatically see the trail of the craziest incline – the wretched, most agonising climb of your life. Maybe the darkness is to cover those beset by altitude sickness – wobbling, vomiting, crying and in delirium.

You’ll be asked at Stella Point if you feel in good spirits to proceed on to the next peak. That prize peak to which your innermost stubbornness reigns victorious because of course, you would not give up now.

A man and woman, dressed in layers of hiking clothing, stand in front of the Mount Kilimanjaro Stella Point sign. Behind them is snow covered mountain slopes and other trekkers.

And for another hour, you trudge through iced, rock pathways, crossing the scree and snow, winding up to Uhuru Peak. Emerging in the blinding morning light as the broad, flat sweep of the flat volcanic rim stands before you – one of the most incredible open stages on planet earth.

A line if people trek up the snow covered crater rim of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Behind them in a small peak and a seemingly never-ending layer of cloud.

A small group of trekkers emerge from a path, onto the top of a rocky plateau of the Kilimanjaro Summit. The black mountain rocks are covered in patches of snow.

A small line of people walk across a long mountain crater rim covered in snow to a backdrop of light yellow sunrise - part of Kilimanjaro Uhuru Peak.

Small crowds gather around the sign, with often only minutes to capture the moment and revel in the bewilderment of the African dawn on a 360-degree panorama before needing to head down.

A small group of people walking on a wide mass of pure white snow on the very top of Kilimanjaro mountain. In the background a group of people can be seen gathering around the summit sign board.

A man and woman stand in front of the mountain top, snow-covered wooden sign for Uhuru Peak after climbing Kilimanjaro.

Uhuru – Mweka Camp

  • 6 hours of trekking
  • 12km
  • Sleep at 3,100m

Exhausted, elated and emotional at reaching the Summit, you can’t stay long because of the importance of getting down from a high altitude. From the peak back down to Base Camp, you face a strenuous three-hour journey that conflicts with the just experienced elation – a slippery rock slide descent on a sea of loose pebbles and volcanic sands.

Four people climb up the dark, wide rocky pathway of Kilimanjaro's peak, backed by large volcanic slopes and small patches of melting snow.

What keeps you going is the slow brewing warmth of the lower altitude sun and the promise that there is time to sleep a little before continuing.

You have another 3.5 hours of descent to Mweka Camp at 3,100m through what I call the white stone forest. A seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of uneven white rocks on a hilltop with a distant camp view that doesn’t feel like it’s inching any closer.

A man in grey clothing and carrying a red and grey bag walking on a white rock path through green shrubbery.

A man and woman, looking extremely tired and holding walking poles, stand in front of the Kilimanjaro Mweka Camp wooden sign. A scattering of tents can be seen in the background.

This is how broken you may end up looking after Summit night and day.

Day 8: Mweka Camp to Moshi

  • 3-4 hours of trekking
  • 10km

Today is relatively easy as you make your way out of Kilimanjaro National Park symbolically through the downhill and flat Montana Forest from which you started your journey.

A group of trekkers walking in a line on an orange muddy path through the thick Rainforest of Kilimanjaro. They follow a porter carrying a large green sack and a wicker basket.

It’s a muddy trail through the mountain’s lower slopes, met with jubilation at the last wooden outpost after Mweka Gate that signposts your victory.

Five trekkers stand the left of a muddy trail path, and a guide, wearing a purple hat and carrying a large bag stands to the right, in the Rainforest zone of Kilimanjaro.

A man sitting on a bench looks towards the camera as another man, in a blue jacket, grey pants and a large hat smiles as he walks out of the wooden triangular building with a green roof, with the rainforest behind.

A woman in grey and man in black, standing in front of the Kilimanjaro National Park 'Congratulations! Bon Voyage' signage at the end of the trek.

Before continuing to Moshi, we had lunch at Mweka village. You might recognise the worn, weary faces from that first day and the hurried hellos along the trails. The atmosphere is a celebration of accomplishment and survival and a release of excess adrenalin.

Back at the hotel, the shower is the most glorious, indulgent shower you’ve ever had – a one-metre-squared spa. You scrub up, ready for the climbing ceremony where you get your certificates, presented to you by your guides and the ‘Moshi Mamas’ of the Moshi Women’s Cooperative – a G Adventures community project which provides business education to local women via the funds raised through tourism.

Is it Worth Choosing the Lemosho Route?

Absolutely. The long stretch up Mt.Kili might elongate the pain of the climb, but the privilege of trekking through an exponential amount of incredible landscapes and having an entire group successfully overcome altitude issues and summit will always overshadow any trials and tribulations of the journey. 

About Becki

Becki Enright is a British Travel Press Award-winning writer whose work focuses on changing perceptions about misunderstood aspects of destinations. Her writing combines storytelling with insight into the social, historical, political and economic factors that shape the country or place in relation to tourism. Becki has appeared live on Sky News and CNN and has contributed to high profile media including National Geographic, Time.com, Guardian online, New York Times, Grazia and Buzzfeed.

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