Written by T.J Olwig for Men’s Journal
Moments after breaking camp at Shira II, a clogged-up campsite on the western slopes of Kilimanjaro National Park, the Indian national anthem filled the Tanzanian air.
Even on a breezy morning, the loud, minutes-long ballad—chanted by an upbeat bunch of twenty-something Subcontinental trekkers clambering up the mountain—swallowed the singletrack Lemosha Route whole. Not that the trail was a hushed library before the hikers broke into song. Quite the opposite, really.
Somewhere in the moorland’s misty veil, a pack of Aussies roared on a loop, appending the high-altitude chorus with muscular chants of Oi, Oi, Oi!
Farther up the trail, a tacky pop song belched from a portable Bluetooth speaker strapped to a guide’s backpack, a mob of head-bopping Americans in tow.
Call me old-school, but I’m borderline monastic when it comes to the backcountry.
Music, drones, feckless chitchat—they all trigger a reaction. Even more so when I’m 13,000 feet above sea level, in the middle of one of the most physically demanding adventures of my life.
Sure, it was the middle of August, the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro’s high season, which meant the mountain was busier than a Walmart on Black Friday.
Trails were jammed and campsites packed. (Shira I, a campground turned tented village where we hit the sack on our first night, looked like Woodstock, felt like a circus, and smelled like a porta potty).
This time of year, thousands of enthusiastic climbers from around the world flocked to northern Tanzania’s sunny slopes with a shared dream: to stand atop Uhuru Peak, Africa’s gift to the Seven Summits.
If all went to plan, and the mountain gods deemed our legs, lungs, and bowels worthy, we’d get to spend some time admiring the world from the Roof of Africa at 19,341 feet.
Long considered the most approachable big mountain “climb” in the game, Kilimanjaro’s popularity wasn’t lost on me.
The gargantuan snow-capped massif that splits through the wildlife-rich plains of Tanzania and Kenya doesn’t require special skill or technical equipment.
No ropes or crampons. Zero crevassing.
Barely a rock scramble.
In other words, while it’s not a walk in the park, it’s one of the more accessible big summits out there, which is why you’ll find ample Instagram posts of the famous summit sign.
With a moderate level of fitness, proper acclimatization, and the ability to string together a week’s worth of day hikes, more or less, mere mortals can take on the basalt behemoth that the Maasai and Chagga view as the seat of God.
You’re unlikely to land a North Face sponsorship, but you’ll snatch a pretty groovy bucket-list checkmark having scaled the fourth-most topographically prominent peak on Earth. Only the Himalayas’ Everest, the Andes’ Aconcagua, and the Alaska Range’s Denali tote taller base-to-crest measurements than Kili.
Our climbing party comprised me and three others—Wil Smith, the founder of Deeper Africa, and a veteran outfitter who cooked up our tailor-made Kilimanjaro itinerary; Lucy, a Tanzanian lawyer on her second crack at the summit; and Alan, a high-schooler from Vancouver, Washington.
Rounding out our crew were two guides, Emmanuel and Robinson, a chef, camp manager, and 22 porters—the lifeblood of the mountain—hired to lug our gear and set up camp each night. Because of them, all I had to do was throw my Gregory daypack on each morning, stuffed with essentials.
Save for the lifelong conversation starter of climbing to the zenith of the Eastern Hemisphere’s tallest volcano—a dormant volcano, mind you—the grind and glory of scaling a big mountain wasn’t what drew me a few clicks south of the Equator, some 8,000 miles from home.
As a journey-over-destination kind of guy, I was less concerned about the rewards and ego boost of “conquering” a big mountain, whatever that meant, than I was the road it would take to get there.
What lured me to Kilimanjaro was the opportunity to climb a trail less-followed: the Northern Circuit, a combo-route away from the crowds, noise, and rubbish that overwhelms much of the mountain’s ever-busy southern face.
Another plus was the route’s scenery, which I’d been told was the best on the mountain, dappled with vistas few trekkers get to see. But two days and 10-plus mountain miles into the expedition, the promise of a quiet ascent had yet to manifest.
That’s when the dusty Lemosha trail veered right towards Lava Tower, a 300-foot volcanic plug, and we peeled left—no signpost, nary a cairn. In an instant, the volume nosedived, then it hushed. To confirm our divergence, I looked back over my shoulder. The hordes of hikers had vanished.
Seconds after the greatest lefthand turn of my life, Smith looked at me as we descended into a valley of fog, en route to Moir Camp.
“This is where the nightmare ends,” he said with a smirk, “and the real Kilimanjaro experience begins.”
Climb High. Sleep Low. Pole, Pole.
Heavy, sub-freezing winds slammed my tent that night, shrieking like a dog whistle. Inside my zero-degree sleeping bag, I was wrapped tighter than a Chipotle burrito stuffed with double protein and every last accoutrement—beanie, fleece, down jacket, thermals, liner, and a hot Nalgene bottle tucked between my legs. Somewhere in the dark, hopefully faraway, jackals were howling in the thin air. I looked at my watch. It was 2:33 a.m., my sixth wakeup call of the night.
The elements weren’t to blame, just a confused body adapting to life at two-and-a-half miles above sea level. I was dehydrated and sleep deprived, jarred awake by a dry mouth and a chain of heartrending nightmares (trippy dreams are common at high altitude and mine left a trail of tears in their wake).
Up here, it was a chore just to lean upright and take a swig of water, not because I was cold or unfit, but because movement of any kind at 13,632 feet skyrocketed my heart rate.
Compared to big mountains of similar elevation—and, by default, the world’s other six summits—Kilimanjaro’s reputation as an “easy” big mountain climb is a wildly misleading designation.
While putting one foot in front of the other is your sole alpine task, make no mistake about it: Kili is a demanding, volatile undertaking of both mind and matter—one that requires preparation, patience, and a liberal dose of respect and luck.
I placed my faith in Deeper Africa, whose multi-tiered game plan to combat altitude sickness included the Northern Circuit, Kilimanjaro’s longest route, which boasted the mountain’s highest success rate due to its length alone.
While most climbs average six to eight days, we were set for nine, mixing tough treks with scenic detours (Cathedral Point, skipped by many, delivers one of the most epic vistas in the entire park). On rest days, we’d arrive by noon to our next day’s camp after a couple hours of hiking and take it easy.
If Kilimanjaro’s stats are elusive—and they are—our algorithm was simple: More time on the mountain meant better acclimatization, and better acclimatization meant easier breathing and smooth(er) sailing on the road to 19,341 feet. Far too many outfitters shave off a day or two at the behest of time-strapped clients. Not Deeper Africa.
Our group would climb high, sleep low, hydrate like hell, and avoid unnecessarily brutal day climbs that punished the body (ahem, Lava Tower).
Morning and night, our vitals would be measured, and we’d adhere to the Swahili maxim of “pole, pole,” or “slowly, slowly,” drilled into us on the regular by Emma and Robinson, our commanders in chief.
“If you go ‘pole, pole’ now,” Emma said on our first day in the rainforest, where colobus monkeys swung freely in the canopy at 7,500 feet, “it will help on summit night.”
Years ago, he guided a burly bunch of British soldiers up Kilimanjaro. “I don’t know what your ranks are,” the soft-spoken Rastafarian told them on their first day, “but I’m the general out here.”
With 50-something miles ahead of us, the snail’s pace we’d been sentenced to was a hard pill to swallow, given my typical breakneck hiking gait. But when the command is issued by a duo rocking five decades of experience and 600 successful summits on their Kilimanjaro belt, you check your ego at the door.
Unable to conk out, I tracked my altitude symptoms as the wind pounded my tent: jumpy heart rate, swollen knuckles, insomnia, loss of appetite, nausea, and a miserable multi-day bout of the ‘tude toots, also known as high-altitude flatus expulsion (it’s a real thing, it turns outs, in low pressure).
No headache, diarrhea, or breathing issues of any kind, which I decided were mini victories. The raw, nickel-sized blister on my left heel I placed in its own file.
My only real concern was my wavering ticker. I knew its rapidity had merit, working overtime to feed my brain more oxygen—a good thing, I figured. But this was at 13,000 feet.
How would it react on summit night, more than a mile higher than our current coordinates? When you’re wide-eyed with a thumping chest at the foot of a stratovolcano in the middle of the frigid Tanzanian night, this is what you think about.
The Northern Circuit: A Trail Less-Traveled
The next morning was breezy and blue-skied. The creek that snakes through Moir Camp froze over. Always there and ever the flirt, Kilimanjaro sparkles thousands of feet above our campsite, topped by snow and tinged with golden-hour sunlight.
The bare-faced volcano isn’t the prettiest mountain I’ve ever seen, but she’s intoxicating nonetheless, and I try not to be seduced by her spell, which throttles my mind into the future. When any mention of the summit swirls amongst the group (and it does morning, day, and night), I cling to Robinson’s wise words.
“Today is today,” he told us in broken English during our second day’s lunch, “and tomorrow is tomorrow.”
Despite coming off the worst night’s sleep of my life, my stoke-level is high and I’m ready to move around the mountain. Knowing the next few days on Kilimanjaro’s northern slope were laborious and long, I savored it all as we headed for the heart of the Northern Circuit, focusing on my current step only, not my next one.
Right off the bat, it’s a 500-foot climb up and out of Moir Valley and into Lent Hills, a boulder-strewn volcanic field with a throughline fit for a Hollywood blockbuster.
The heart-pumping ascent is a robust warmup and an unexpected tonic for my groggy cells, culminating on a ridgeline that feels as though we’ve left one planet and landed on another.
High above the Shira Plateau, I pause for some water beside a mound of obsidian leftovers at the top of the hour-long climb.
A flock of white-necked ravens glided on the morning’s breeze. Poking through the white bedspread below us in the shape of a hat that was Mount Meru, Africa’s fifth-tallest peak (14,977 feet) and the star of Arusha National Park.
The cloudscape was mesmerizing, and I enjoyed it all the more knowing that my own two feet brought me here, a view typically reserved for a window seat on a 737. If there’s an unofficial starting line to the Northern Circuit, the extraterrestrial makeup of this crestline had to be it.
For the next few days, we hiked in utter peace, passing by and camping beside no more than five groups on the relatively flat trail. Mile after mile, valley after valley, we skirted through Kilimanjaro’s dusty, desolate alpine desert towards Mawenzi Peak, one of three volcanic cones inside the park.
I wasn’t mounted to a horse, but I felt like a cowboy in a spaghetti western. Save for the occasional helichrysum and psychedelic-looking lobelia plant, the footpath and its wide-open surroundings oozed muted colors—greys on tans on browns and nothing more. From time to time, I hung back to absorb the low-decibel environment sans any chatter or bootcrunch. It was a pleasure just to listen to the earth breathe.
Both of our Northern Circuit campsites, Pofu and Third Cave, offer front-row seats to the most spell-binding sunrises I’ve ever seen, which blossom from the Kenyan savannah and illuminate Kili’s slopes in a celestial morning glow. So wonderful was the day’s first light in Great Rift Valley I’m convinced the mountain could operate on sunrise tourism alone.
After two days, the Northern Circuit merged with Rongai Route, but instead of joining the other groups towards basecamp, we hopscotched over to Mawenzi Tarn Hut in the name of acclimatization. It’s a slog to get there, and I’m grumpy we’re walking miles away from Kili after all the toil we put in to get here. (At this point, we all had summit fever and were eager to give her a go).
“There’s a method to the madness,” Smith assured me earlier in the trip. When we arrived by mid-afternoon, my grouchiness transmuted to joy.
Our payoff was a night spent at the foot of Mawenzi Peak, Africa’s third-tallest mountain at 16,893 feet. Older than Kili, the jagged rockscape reminds me of the American West, and is, without question, the expedition’s finest campsite, one I can’t imagine having skipped. Somehow, with thousands of boots on the ground inside the park, the rock arena is all ours—and it’s gorgeous.
Come morning, we trekked across the Saddle, a barren landscape that bridges the two peaks of Mawenzi and Kibo. The terrain was bone-dry and could easily star in a Dune panorama, speckled with old eland tracks and the scattered debris of a downed airplane. It was bland in the most beautiful way. Once again, our caravan of porters notwithstanding, we passed no one else the entire day.
Five hours after embarking, we made it to School Hut, 15,476 feet in the sky. Tucked in a cozy stadium of gigantic boulders, the campsite housed an American couple and that was it. From here, our nearly 4,000-foot bid for the summit began, under a blue moon at midnight.
A Summit Bid for the Roof of Africa
At 12:09 a.m., a half-hour after a half-cup of coffee that my palate and body clock couldn’t register, our eight-hour climb was underway. It had been less than three hours since I zipped up my tent for the night.
To mitigate time spent at dangerous altitudes, a midnight walk is the safest bet to get up and down Kili in a single day. Commencing the most arduous physical challenge of one’s life during the coldest hours of the night on little-to-no sleep isn’t ideal, but it’s not without perks. Volcanic scree freezes to form better trail traction, a plus for when our bodies begin to slow down. And the big one: a sunrise view from the Roof of Africa.
After a short rock scramble up and out of camp, the expedition’s first two hours went by in a flash, and we converged with the Kibo Hut route at the confluence of the Rongai and Marangu routes.
To my surprise, the junction sits a hair under 17,000 feet, which means we somehow climbed 1,500 feet without noticeable strain.
This was an intentional tactic per Deeper Africa, of course. Rather than overnighting at Kibo Hut, a buzzy campsite with an instant 60-degree vertical to the summit, we covered the same ground without so much as noticing the incline due to its gradual grade. Asante! I thought, which means “thank you” in Swahili.
Not long after passing Hans Meyer Cave, everything changed.
One second, I was gently humming Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” alongside Emma in the glow of an otherworldly moonlight; the next second, my tone and tongue came to an abrupt halt. Somewhere north of 17,500 feet on a punishingly steep stretch of switchbacks, shortly after I turned off my headlamp and threw on extra layers, prior to my water bottle turning to slush, the altitude ambushed me. At this juncture, all I could do was go along for the ride.
In a matter of minutes, I lost feeling in my legs and my double-gloved hands went from painfully cold to completely numb. Simultaneously, I gasped for air, which called for mandatory pitstops to crouch over my trekking poles so my lungs could collect themselves. The lack of oxygen wasn’t a concern, but it was a full-body sedation. The usual high-speed signal being sent from my brain to my legs to keep moving was downgraded to AOL dialup. On Kilimanjaro, you learn to carry on, and I had to keep moving to reach Uhuru Peak.
As I trudged up the mountain in a blitz of discomfort, our crew softly sang a Swahili prayer—there were no other groups around—that acknowledged how far we’d traveled and blessed us for a safe journey.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the peaceful hymn kept me awake and catapulted my frozen faculties and fading eyes into a deep single-pointed focus that propelled me higher and higher. By daybreak, we were alone atop Gilman’s Point, a snow-splotched perch on the crater rim, gawking at a sunrise no amount of AI could produce.
Two hours later, I was sitting on an ice block atop the Mother Continent’s frozen ceiling, too battered to stand in the searing equatorial sun.
There, the treasure that was our route sunk in as I watched swarms of climbers from the mountain’s other routes overwhelm Kili’s iconic summit sign, chaotically passing smartphones around like trade slips on the stock floor—a scene we successfully evaded for the better part of a week on one of the world’s busiest mountains.
Eventually, I crept through the crowds, high-fived a few strangers, and waited in line, securing my snapshot by the hand of an unknown porter.
“How are you my brother?” Robinson asked me moments after the photo, his trademark smile painted across his face.
Knowing the weight of my Kili triumph wouldn’t hit me for days, if not weeks or months later, never mind the knee-battering hours-long descent we had in front of us, I responded with gratitude and without hesitation. “It’s time to go,” I said.
And away we went.
Where Is Mount Kilimanjaro?
Located in Tanzania, Africa’s tallest mountain sits on the Kenyan border in East Africa, some 200 miles south of the Equator. Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Mount Kilimanjaro is the world’s highest free-standing mountain, the tallest volcano in the Eastern Hemisphere, and one of the Seven Summits of the World.