7 Days
Daily Tour
10 people
English
The Lemosho route is considered the most scenic trail on Kilimanjaro, granting panoramic vistas on various sides of the mountain. As one of the newer routes, Lemosho is a superb choice for your climb. It is our preferred route due to its ideal balance of low crowds, beautiful scenery and a high summit success rate. Topi Adventure specializes in guiding on the Lemosho route. Most of our clients climb Kilimanjaro using this route and they consistently report that they loved it. Thus, Lemosho is highly recommended. The route approaches Mount Kilimanjaro from the west, beginning with a long drive from Moshi to Londorossi Gate.
From there, the first two days are spent trekking through the rain forest to Shira Ridge. The Lemosho route crosses the entire Shira Plateau from west to east in a pleasant, relatively flat hike. Crowds are low until the route joins the Machame route near Lava Tower. Then the route traverses underneath Kilimanjaro’s Southern Ice Field on a path known as the Southern Circuit before summiting from Barafu. Descent is made via the Mweka route.
Topi Adventure offers Lemosho as an eight day group climb or as a seven to eight day private climb. The seven day variation combines days five and six, going from Barranco Camp to Barafu Camp without staying at Karanga. A nine day variation that includes an overnight at Crater Camp is available as a private climb by special request.
After breakfast, will pick you up from your hotel your hotel and transport you to Londorosi Gate for registration. After this formality, you board the vehicle and drive again to Lemosho Glade. From this point you will start the trek across undisturbed montane forest decorated with black and white colobus monkeys to the camp where dinner and overnight will take place.
This is an acclimatization trek because you will gain over 650m by starting walking across a beautiful valley outside Shira’s caldera rim (3600m). After few hours you will reach into Shira Caldera. A high altitude desert, Shira is the one among the three peaks which erupted in Kilimanjaro ecosystem. The peak later collapsed and formed a crater which eventually became filled with the lava flow from Kibo Peak. Its rim is eroded and blasted away by weather and volcanic action. Camp and overnight at 3500m elevation at the Shira One Campsite.
This day you will trek to east across Shira Plateau visiting Cathedral Peak (3850m) for acclimatization. Reaching at this peak you will find spectacular views of Mt. Meru and Kibo Peak. We then continue trekking to Shira Two Camp where we will stay for dinner and overnight place.
This is long and important acclimatization day so you will be having an early breakfast then continue trekking east to a junction leading to Lava Tower Rock 4600m for acclimatization. Afterwards you will continue down to Barranco Camp. The camp location is in the bottom valley of Barranco Wall where you will stop for dinner and overnight.
Today is long day walk. In the morning you will start climbing Barranco Wall and reach 4200m for acclimatization and continue crossing ridges and valleys to Karanga Campsite for hot lunch. After lunch you will proceed to Barafu Campsite for dinner and overnight before the midnight ascent to the summit..
Wake at midnight to a light breakfast and then prepare for your summit ascent. The goal is to climb before dawn so that you can reach Uhuru Peak shortly before or after sunrise. The trails is a series of switchbacks up steep scree or possibly snow, and reach Stella Point on the crater rim at 5,861 m/18,640 ft between 4 and 5 AM. At this point you will be having the views of the fabled crater and its glaciers facing you.
Then after 1 hour of hiking along the Kibo Crater Rim near the celebrated snows takes you to Kilimanjaro true summit, Uhuru Peak. Here you will spend some minutes taking photos and enjoying the achievement. After your summit activities done, you will descend back to the Barafu Campsite, for lunch, rest, collect your equipment, and continue down through moorland and heath zone to Mweka Campsite. Dinner and overnight at Mweka Campsite.
Today is your last day on the mountain. After breakfast you will descend down to Mweka Gate walking across montane forest. This descent will take 3-4 hours. Here at the gate you will sign out and get ready to board the vehicle ready for the transfer back to the hotel for your certificate presentation and a well deserved celebration.
Airport transfers are not included in the price of this tour, however you can book for an arrival transfer in advance. Our representative will be at the airport to greet you. To arrange this please contact our customer service team once you have a confirmed booking.
You are expected to carry your own day pack, with only things which should be able to sustain you until you reach the next camp at the end of the day. You do not need to carry your personal backpack/ duffel pack - It will be carried by our porters.
No worries about that - this is a common concern. It is much better for your body if you proceed slowly and guides will permanently remind you about this (“pole-pole” - which means “slowly slowly”). By walking slowly, your body will much better acclimatize to high altitude.
There is plenty of time allocated each day for the treks, even for those who like to go very slowly.
Some climbers may fall short of reaching the summit, but not at the expense of their overall experience. Even for those who never reached the top, the experience of the wonders of Kilimanjaro is very rewarding.
If one or more members of the group decide they cannot continue, or if a guide deems it unsafe for an individual (or a group) to continue, they are escorted to the most convenient campsite or Hut.
Our guides intimately know the network of shortcuts to escort climbers to safety, and they are trained to act quickly and calmly under any circumstance.
On the Marangu Route, there are simple basic Huts. The first 2 Huts sleep four people each and the last Hut is a dome-style with bunk beds.
On all the other routes, you will sleep in 3 dome-style Tents, two people each. The Tents are modern and have an outer flysheet and large vestibules keep equipment from the elements. They are set up, broken down and carried- along with everything else- by our porters.
There are public toilets set up at every campsite, but portable toilets are available upon request at the cost of $ 100 per group for the whole tour. Hot water is provided for each person every morning but No showers during trek
There will be dining tents with chairs and tables where all meals will be served. Before any meal, we will provide soap and hot water for washing your hands.
For each trek on the Mount a dedicated cook will be part of the logistical team. They are professional chefs and have the ability to prepare different kinds of dishes. Please see a sample page for Dietary Menu.
You shouldn't worry- You are in safe hands. Our guides are professionally trained to handle all sorts of distress and respond quickly and accordingly. They all have Wilderness First Aid Responder qualification and they will all time bring you to safety. They will directly call for an emergency evacuation if the situation worsens.
The tours are scheduled to start in Moshi, departing on Daily basis. However, circumstances like clients’ arrival time, activities to be done and client’s preference could affect the program. Our company is flexible for such arrangements and adjustments. Normally the program starts around 7:30 AM
The tours are scheduled to End in Moshi. You may also wish to be dropped outside Moshi at an extra cost depending on the place of drop off. However, our travel specialists will need to know your specific drop-off point prior to the hike to get aligned with the program