Kibo seen from the alpine desert

Lemosho RouteTanzaniaJune 2026

Eric ChemworKilimanjaro 2026

Eight days of walking, done in seven. I went from a rainforest gate at to the roof of Africa, and came back down in a hurry.

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Kilimanjaro National Park · Tanzania 03°04′S 37°21′E Sheet 1 · Lemosho Route June 24–30, 2026

A stomach bug, a stinging nettle, monkeys fighting at three in the morning, a wall I climbed with my hands, and one very long day that ended at ten at night. This is all seven days of it, camp by camp, the way I walked it.

Rainforest
Heather
Moorland
Alpine desert
Arctic
Fig. 1 Elevation profile · gate to gate

Seven days of up

Every camp, pass and peak we touched, plotted against the ground we covered. Hover or tap any station. The shaded band is the push itself, Barafu up to Uhuru.

Fig. 2 Pulse oximetry · one reading per day

What the air was doing to us

A healthy reading at sea level sits at 95–100%. The mountain took mine from 89% down to the 30s, and the 30s is where the summit stopped being a hike and became an emergency. Tap a reading for that day.

Summary What it added up to

The ledger

Kilimanjaro is the tallest freestanding mountain on earth. It stands alone on a plain, of volcano rising straight out of it with no range around it. I walked through five climate zones to get up there: rainforest, heather, moorland, alpine desert, arctic. Four days out of the trees and one nineteen-hour day, and I was standing on the top of a continent.

A note From the author

Your journey deserves a sheet of its own.

I built this page myself, the charts, the route, the story, all from the photos on my phone and the numbers the mountain left behind. I've started making them for other people. A trek, a season, a build, a year that mattered. If you'd like one for a journey of your own, leave your email and I'll write to you personally about how it works.

No list, no newsletter. Just me, replying.