The Machame route

Machame is the busiest route on Kilimanjaro, and it earns its popularity. It approaches from the south, camps the whole way (there are no huts), and its profile suits acclimatization well, most famously on the day it climbs to Lava Tower at around 4,600 m15,092 ft and then drops back down to sleep at Barranco, the classic “walk high, sleep low”. The scenery is varied, the trail is well known to every guide and porter on the mountain, and the success rate on the longer versions is good. It is sometimes called the “Whiskey route”, a nickname invented to contrast it with the easier, hut-based Marangu “Coca-Cola route”, it is a little tougher and a little wilder.

This section carries the full southern stage set. Two other routes join it: Lemosho comes in from the Shira Plateau, and Umbwe comes up steeply from below to meet it at Barranco. From those junctions onward, all three routes share the same trail (the Barranco Wall, Karanga, Barafu, the summit via Stella Point and the descent to Mweka) so those stages are described once, here, and the other routes link across to them rather than repeating the text.

Machame is walked in six or seven days on the mountain. We present the seven-day version as the sensible default: the extra night, usually spent at Karanga, gives you another day to acclimatize before summit night and noticeably improves both your chances and your enjoyment. The six-day version squeezes the Barranco-to-Barafu section into a single long day and is the aggressive minimum, climbable, but you are giving up the acclimatization margin that makes the difference up high. If you want to understand why we count it this way, read the planning chapter first.

In this section

• → Machame Gate to Machame Camp
• → Machame Camp to Shira Camp
• → Shira to Barranco (via Lava Tower)
• → Barranco Wall to Karanga
• → Karanga to Barafu
• → Summit day: Barafu to Uhuru
• → Descent via Mweka