About 2 years ago, I made the (rash) decision to trek up a mountain. Mind you, at that point I wasn’t really hiking or really working out. However, this was forreal on the bucket list since I was like 15, and for some reason, I really didn’t think there would be any better time to do this other than my senior year of college. Anyway, long story short, I did it. I summited Mount Kilimanjaro on New Year’s Day in 2023.

We (my cousin and I, sorry for exposing you <3) cried at the top. I really did not think I would make it, since those grueling hours on summit day felt like years. I was 19,000 feet up when I reached Uhuru Peak, the top of Kilimanjaro and the top of Africa. It was cold, icy, slippery, and the wind was piercing. But most importantly, the views were breathtaking (literally cause I couldn’t breathe). Here is a picture of the sun peaking in about 5 hours into our summit ascent (bottom right), along with some other pictures from the summit journey taken by my dear groupmates and now lifelong friends:

What Even is Kilimanjaro?

Mount Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano located in Tanzania, Africa, which is considered the highest mountain on the continent and the world’s largest free standing mountain, which means it is not part of a mountain range. And I summited that shit. WOW. Anyway - It stands at about 5900 meters (~19,300 feet) above sea level. The highest point is Uhuru Peak. There are 7 established routes to hike Kili. and the most common routes are the Lemosho route, Machame route, and the Northern Circuit route. We hiked up the Lemosho route, which averages about 6.5 days ascent and 1.5 days descent, totaling 8 days. On the bottom right is a diagram of all of the routes that lead to the summit.

How do you even pick a route? Literally just by researching. Some of the routes offer different types of scenery than the others, some are shorter than the others, and so on and so forth. We chose the Lemosho Route for its scenery and different climate zones, along with being able to acclimatize better to the elevation over the course of 8 days. It’s definitely just about preference. But just to prepare you - while the shorter duration routes seem appealing, the summit rate is much lower due to the fact that hikers are not able to acclimatize well enough to reach the summit and unfortunately have to return back down the mountain. So… yeah.

Also, if and when you are preparing to hike Kilimanjaro, it is required by Tanzanian law to go with a tour group. Our friends at Kandoo Adventures were incredible! Shoutout to our guides, Andrew, Tuma, Thaddeus, Esto, and Erwald. Literally recommend them to anyone that wants to climb. The company is based out of the United Kingdom, but that honestly doesn’t matter since you can pay with US currency as well and our group was from all over the world. And no, there is no age limit at all, I was the youngest (21 at the time) and the oldest was I think in their 60’s?

Anyway, enough writing, although I honestly could write about Kilimanjaro for days and days and still never get tired. If there is anything specific that needs to be broken down, maybe I’ll add another tab later on. But for now, enjoy the rest of the pictures taken by my groupmates and I x