A trekker on the Lemosho Route has filed a day-by-day account of a Kilimanjaro climb, and day two is where the mountain starts to show its range. The route ran 5.5 miles from Mti Mkubwa Camp at 2,650 metres up to Shira Camp at 3,505 metres — a gain of roughly 870 metres — through forest, across a recent burn zone, and finally onto the Shira Plateau itself.
The morning followed the rhythm you can expect on any guided Kili trip: hot drinks delivered to the tent at dawn, then a surprisingly solid breakfast of porridge, pancakes, eggs, sausage and toast in the dining tent. The group left camp at 7:30 and rolled into Shira Camp around 1pm — slow by choice. Guides deliberately pace groups very gently to help acclimatisation, and the writer's workaround was to hang back about 50 feet on steep, rocky stretches so they could keep their own momentum instead of matching the group's crawl step for step.
The scenery shift is the real story of the day. Leaving the forest zone, the trail crosses a moorland scarred by a recent fire, with an odd patchwork pattern where the trail corridor and certain ridges stayed unburned. Then comes the Shira Plateau, part of the collapsed caldera of Shira — the oldest and westernmost of Kilimanjaro's three volcanoes, alongside Kibo and Mawenzi. The plateau has an otherworldly feel, all dark lava rock and burnt ground, and it's the first big taste of the mountain's high, barren upper reaches.
Life at camp gives a good picture of what a supported Kilimanjaro climb actually looks like. Tents were already pitched on arrival; the operator, Climb Kili, supplies a foam sleeping pad as a supplement to your own, and the writer carried a 7.5kg pack including 2.5 litres of water. Lunch was fish leek soup, tomato sandwiches and pasta with chicken sauce. Diamox (the altitude medication) came on a twice-daily schedule, timed so overnight bathroom trips stay manageable, and an afternoon nap was capped at under an hour to protect the night's sleep. Even entertainment gets adapted to altitude — the writer was practising a sitting version of the Thriller dance to attempt on the trail.
For anyone weighing up the Lemosho Route, this leg captures its appeal: a gradual profile, varied vegetation zones in quick succession, and camps that handle all the logistics so you just walk, eat and sleep. Worth noting from the side: solo travellers who sign up for group departures can end up as a group of one, so if company matters to you, confirm your departure actually has other trekkers on it. Expect slow hiking, big meals, early nights, and an altitude curve that starts making itself felt around Shira Camp.
