The Lemosho route

Lemosho starts on the remote western side of the mountain and is, for many guides and repeat climbers, the best all-round route on Kilimanjaro. It begins quietly, away from the crowds, crossing the broad Shira Plateau over the first couple of days before it joins the Machame trail. Because it starts low and gains height gradually across the plateau, its acclimatization profile is excellent. It is a camping route.

This section describes only Lemosho’s own stages, the approach from Londorossi Gate up onto the plateau, and the high Crater Camp variant. Once Lemosho reaches Shira 2 it follows exactly the same trail as Machame: up to Lava Tower, down to Barranco, over the Barranco Wall to Karanga and Barafu, up to the summit via Stella Point, and down via Mweka. Those shared stages are described on the Machame pages, and this route links across to them rather than repeating the text.

We present Lemosho as an eight-day climb by default. Seven days is the workable minimum; eight adds a night that markedly improves acclimatization, and the nine- or ten-day version adds a night high inside the crater at Crater Camp, right below the summit, an extraordinary experience, but one only for the strong and well-acclimatized (see the Crater Camp stage). Longer is better here, as on every route; the planning chapter explains why we count days the way we do.

In this section

• → Londorossi Gate to Mti Mkubwa
• → Mti Mkubwa to Shira 1
• → Shira 1 to Shira 2 (joins Machame)
• → Crater Camp variant: a night below the summit