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Mt Kilimanjaro
Machame Route (“Whiskey Route”) — a demanding trek through varied landscapes to Africa’s highest summit and the world’s highest free-standing mountain.
Climbing Kilimanjaro via the Machame Route is one of the most popular ways to the summit of Africa’s highest mountain and the world’s highest free-standing mountain. The Machame Route, also known as the “Whiskey Route,” is a tough trek that takes you through varied landscapes and ecosystems, providing stunning views along the way.
The day-by-day posts below are field notes from that line — camps, altitude, and what the trail actually asked for.
Coordinates from each stage’s frontmatter.
The Gate is one of a handful of entrances to Kilimanjaro and the start of the Machame Route. Many tours will prepare a lunch or breakfast for hikers on their trips, served in covered terraces with seating and long tables.
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Machame is nestled in the forest, and so is quite free from wind. It also is laid out in clearings and so each group has some small level of privacy from each other.
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The Lava Tower is impressive, rising up in front of the campsite, dark stone causing a shadow over the tents. It's easily visible from some distance due to the flat plain around it.
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Imposing, and surrounding Barranco camp on three sides, the climb up is challenging, but rated as a ‘scramble’ so you don’t need to be an expert. A lot of sites call it the ‘Death Wall’ and throw around terrifying descriptions of how you have to hug the wall to avoid plummeting to your death.
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You start the hike at the edge of the Alpine Desert, after about an hour of climbing in the dark you enter the Arctic Zone, but it is incredibly hard to know when you’ve actually reached this point as you are hiking in darkness and seeing very little but the ground under your feet.
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Other than a short rocky section similar to the final stretch to Mweka Camp, the trail is in good condition, but almost everything was aching for the final descent.
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