Tanzania · Africa · southern hemisphere
Kilimanjaro is at its best for hiking in January to February and August to September. Good but not prime in March, July and October. Crowds peak in January and bottom out in April.
| J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hiking | 92 | 92 | 61 | 11 | 11 | 35 | 64 | 88 | 91 | 73 | 18 | 49 |
| Crowds |
Swipe the table sideways for the rest of the year.
Two climbing windows split by two rainy seasons — January to early March, and late June to early October. The January window is the warmer of the two; the August one is far busier
One objective: a guided climb at altitude, normally five or six days. Not a walking destination in any other sense.
March to May. The long rains make the lower forest sections miserable and the summit approach genuinely dangerous underfoot. October to December is a shorter, milder wet spell.
July and August, and the Christmas and New Year weeks
Tanzania sets the minimum age at ten, and few operators take anyone near it. Altitude sickness does not respect fitness, and the summit night is brutal for anyone — this is not a family objective.
Almost everyone spends a night in Moshi or Arusha either side. Moshi is closer to the mountain and quieter; Arusha is where the safari operators are, which matters if you are pairing the climb with the Serengeti.
The long rains in April and May, and the short rains in November. Summit success rates fall with them.Mar · Apr · May · Nov
Kept out of the score on purpose. Averaging a rare catastrophe into a monthly number would tell you something false; the warning is the honest form.
Route choice is really a choice about how many days you spend acclimatising. The cheap five-day options have markedly worse summit rates, which is the thing worth paying to avoid.
0 is this destination’s own quietest month and 100 its busiest. The scale never compares one destination to another. Source: Wikipedia — Moshi, Tanzania
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