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ROUTES COMPARISON TABLE

An aerial view of Kilimanjaro reveals a tangle of paths snaking their way across the slopes of the mountain. These paths are interconnected and in the course of a complete climb you will use an ascent route, a summit ascent route and a descent route, with the latter determined by the former. In total, there are six ascent paths that climb across the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro. Working your way clockwise around the mountain from the north-east, these are the Rongai Route (Route F), Marangu Route (Route A), Umbwe Route (Route C), Machame Route (Route B), Lemosho Route (Route D) and Shira Route (Route E). At around 4000m these trails all merge with a circular route that runs around Kibo cone, called either the Northern or Southern Circuit Path (Routes H and G respectively), depending on which side of the mountain you are on. Having joined this circuit path, you are faced with three ascent routes to the crater rim: the Normal/Marangu Route (Route I) from Kibo Huts to Stella Point, the Barafu Route (Route J) from Barafu to Gillman’s Point and the Western Breach (Route K) from Arrow Glacier to the crater floor. If you used the Rongai Route or Marangu Route you will climb to the crater via the Normal/Marangu Route. If you used the other paths then you will have a choice of climbing either the longer but easier Barafu Route, or the shorter but more difficult Western Breach. From each arrival point on the crater there is then a short section of trail to the actual summit at Uhuru Peak. Having reached the Roof of Africa, your return journey is pre-determined by the ascent path that you used. If you came up the mountain on the Rongai Route or Marangu Route, you will return via the Marangu Route (Route L). If you ascended by any of the other routes, you will use a dedicated descent path called the Mweka Route (Route M), which falls off the southern side of the mountain below Barafu Hut.

Porter passing through the cloudforest (Machame Route) (photo: Jlwarehouse/Shutterstock)