Rongai Route (6-8 days)

The Rongai route is the only route that approaches Kilimanjaro from the north, close to the Kenyan border. Though gaining popularity amongst climbers, this route still experiences low crowds. Rongai has a more gradual slope than the mountain’s other routes. It is the preferred route for those looking for an alternative to the popular Marangu route, for those who would like a more remote hike, and for those who are climbing during the rainy season (the north side receives less precipitation). Rongai is a moderately difficult route and is highly recommended, especially for those with less backpacking experience.

Although the scenery is not as varied as the western routes, Rongai makes up for this by passing through true wilderness areas for nearly the entire way. Descent is made via the Marangu route.

Chief's Tours is happy to offer you the chance to get to the roof of Africa via Rongai route from 6 to 8-day tours.

Please find detailed itineraries and prices of each option in the following links and CHIEF'S TOURS GALLERY.

- Rongai Route 6 days 5 nights: https://goo.gl/zEE4Rg

- Rongai Route 7 days 6 nights: https://goo.gl/SqAX2w

- Rongai Route 8 days 7 nights: This option is for those who wish to extend the hike based on physical and mental conditions.

Below is the sample of a 7-day 6-night Rongai Route tour.

Itinerary

DAY 1: NALEMORU GATE TO SIMBA CAMP

This morning we will drive to the village of Nalemoru for the starting point of the Rongai route. The first stage of the trek is through farmland and pine forests. You may have a chance to see the beautiful Colobus monkeys or if you’re lucky enough, elephants or buffalos en route. Our first camp will be the Simba Camp located at the edge of the moorland zone at 2625m.

Elevation: 1990m to 2625m
Distance covered: 8km / 5mi
time taken: 4 - 5 hours
Meals: Lunch & Dinner

DAY 2: SIMBA CAMP TO 2^ND CAVE CAMP

The morning hike is a steady ascent up to the Second Cave Camp located in the moorland zone with superb views of Kibo and the Eastern ice fields on the crater rim.

Elevation: 2625m to 3480m
Distance covered: 5km / 3.1mi
time taken: 3 - 4 hours
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 3: 2^ND CAVE CAMP TO KIKELEWA CAMP

Leaving the pine forest behind, we carry on with a steady ascent walking though moorland. There are superb views of the Eastern ice fields on the crater rim of Kibo, the highest of the three volcanoes which form the mountain. We will leave the main trail and strike out across moorland on a smaller path towards the jagged peaks of Mawenzi, the second of Kilimanjaro's volcanoes. We will set up camp today in the sheltered valley near Kikelewa caves at 3630m.

Elevation: 3480m to 3630m
Distance covered: 5km / 3.1mi
time taken: 3 - 4 hours
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 4: KIKELEWA CAMP TO MAWENZI HUT

This morning we have a short but steep ascent up grassy slopes which is rewarded by a superb view of the Kenyan plains to the north. We leave vegetation behind shortly before reaching our next camp at Mawenzi Tarn Hut directly below the towering cliffs of Mawenzi. This afternoon you have a chance to rest or explore the surrounding area to aid acclimatization.

Elevation: 3630m to 4310m
Distance covered: 8km / 5mi
time taken: 4 - 5 hours
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 5: MAWENZI HUT TO KIBO HUT

We leave our campsite and cross the lunar desert of the ‘saddle’ between Mawenzi and Kibo After a couple hours trekking, reach this spectacular place, with the summit of Kilimanjaro in the background and our trail to the high camp stretched out before our eyes. Upon reaching our camp the remainder of the day will be spent resting in preparation for the final ascent after a very early night!

Elevation: 4310m to 4700m
Distance covered: 8km / 5mi
time taken: 5 - 6 hours
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 6: KIBO HUT TO UHURU PEAK DOWN TO HOROMBO HUT

Today is “The Big Day” - the summit stage. You will begin your final ascent around midnight which will be long and strenuous. Passing the Hans Meyer Cave at 5220m, the climb slowly but surely goes upwards. At sunrise, you will reach Gillman’s Point (5681m) – the crater rim of Kilimanjaro – where the sun will slowly start to warm up the land. You will have soon forgotten the cold of the night and after a further hike of 1 - 2 hours, you will reach Uhuru Peak at 5895m. On your return to Kibo Hut, a warm meal awaits you followed by a 1 - 2 hour break before proceeding back down to Horombo Hut.

Elevation: 4700m to 5895m down to 3700m
Distance covered: 22km / 13.7mi
time taken: 12 – 15 hours
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 7: HOROMBO HUT TO MARANGU GATE, BACK TO TOWN

The last stage passes through the heath and moor zone to the Mandara Hut (2700m) where a warm lunch is waiting for you. Soon, you will once again pass the tropical rainforest and after a total time of 6 hours trekking, you will be back at the Kilimanjaro National Park Gate (1860m). After saying goodbye to your mountain guides, a short transfer follows to take you back to your hotel in Moshi. Once there, you can take a warm and relaxing shower and celebrate your success in reaching the summit of the Kilimanjaro.

Elevation: 3700m to 1860m
Distance covered: 20.8km / 12.9mi
time taken: 8 hours
Meals: Breakfast & Lunch

PRICE OF 2022

To meet a significant number of climbers’ demand, we are happy to provide you with a wide range of Kilimanjaro tours divided into 03 types: Budget – Standard – Luxury. Below is the price of Standard offers. For Budget and Luxury options, kindly contact us. Asante sana!

Route	1 person	2 people	3 people	4-5 people	6-8 people	9+ people
Marangu Route 5 days	$ 1350	$1250	$ 1180	$1150	$ 1140	$ 1120
Marangu Route 6 days	$ 1510	$ 1450	$ 1400	$ 1380	$ 1340	$ 1350
Marangu Route 7 days	$ 1680	$ 1630	$ 1600	$ 1570	$ 1550	$ 1530
Rongai Route 6 days	$ 1690	$ 1650	$ 1620	$ 1590	$ 1580	$ 1570
Rongai Route 7 days	$ 1800	$ 1780	$ 1750	$ 1730	$ 1720	$ 1700
Rongai Route 8 days	$ 1920	$ 1890	$ 1860	$ 1830	$ 1820	$ 1800
Umbwe 6 days	$ 1800	$ 1770	$ 1740	$ 1710	$ 1700	$ 1670
Umbwe 7 days	$ 1850	$ 1830	$ 1800	$ 1770	$ 1750	$ 1740
Umbwe 8 days	$ 2000	$ 1970	$ 1940	$ 1910	$ 1900	$ 1880
Shira Route 6 days	$ 1690	$ 1670	$ 1630	$ 1600	$ 1590	$ 1570
Shira Route 7 days	$ 1800	$ 1770	$ 1730	$ 1700	$ 1690	$ 1680
Shira Route 8 days	$ 1920	$ 1890	$ 1860	$ 1830	$ 1820	$ 1800
Machame Route 6 days	$ 1690	$ 1670	$ 1630	$ 1600	$ 1590	$ 1570
Machame Route 7 days	$ 1780	$ 1750	$ 1720	$ 1690	$ 1680	$ 1660
Machame Route 8 days	$ 1920	$ 1890	$ 1860	$ 1830	$ 1820	$ 1800
Lemosho Route 6 days	$ 1690	$ 1660	$ 1630	$ 1600	$ 1590	$ 1570
Lemosho Route 7 days	$ 1800	$ 1770	$ 1740	$ 1710	$ 1700	$ 1670
Lemosho Route 8 days	$ 1920	$ 1890	$ 1860	$ 1830	$ 1820	$ 1800
Lemosho Route 9 days	$ 2100	$ 2070	$ 2040	$ 2100	$ 2000	$ 1980
Northern Circuit Route 7 days	$ 1690	$ 1660	$ 1630	$ 1600	$ 1580	$ 1570
Northern Circuit Route 8 days	$ 1920	$ 1890	$ 1860	$ 1830	$ 1820	$ 1800
Northern Circuit Route 9 days	$ 2100	$ 2070	$ 2040	$ 2010	$ 2000	$ 1940

Inclusion

Exclusion

2-night accommodation in Moshi town: before the first and the final hiking day
Arrival and departure airport transfers
High-quality 4-season camping equipment
Experienced and professional mountain guides
All park fees and rescue fees
All large-portioned, nutritious food and purified drinking water on the mountain
Guides, porters and cook salaries
Pulse Oximeter for daily health check
Crisis management and safety procedures
Fair and ethical treatment of porters
Beds (for luxury tours)

International Flights & Visa & Insurance
Tips to porters and guides (customary and much appreciated)
Meals while in Moshi town
Items considered to be non-essential, such as alcohol, beverages, cigarettes, snacks, etc.
Optional Tours (for example, short safaris after your climb or Moshi day tour, etc.)
Oxygen tanks (included in luxury tours - can be rented in budget and standard tour)
Portable toilets (included in standard & luxury tours - can be rented in budget tours)

Thank you for considering us. We look forward to guiding you to the holy mountain Kilimanjaro!

Contact:+255 7555 49872 / + 255 676 549872(Call/WhatsApp)

Email: info@chiefstours.com | Website: https://chiefstours.com/

Testimonials

Without Chief's Tour Supporting team, it was impossible for me to get to the top of Kilimanjaro. Because it was physically and mentally challenging, everyone tried to take care of me as I was the only women in the group full of big men. From the first moment meeting Adidas and the team in town, I already had a very good impression and feeling about the memorable trip.
Thank you so much, the main guide Msafiri for your nice care as a father to daughter, the assistant guide Heaven for his great patience and encouragement, the chef Jay for his tasty food, the porter Godfrey for saving my life when I got serious altitude sickness, and the other porters for their positivity and energy in spite of their extremely hard job!
The mountain not only brought us an unforgettable experience, it also gave me good friendships and more motivation to come back to Tanzania where I left a big part of my heart.
Travel with Chief's Tours and you'll understand why the company and Adidas himself are well respected by local residents thanks to their contribution to local community. I wish you all the best: best health, best luck and best spirit!

From China with love

Yang Mei China

An ethically credible company, with the friendliest and best staff!

My sister and I summitted Kilimanjaro thanks to Adidas and all of the Chiefs Tours crew. We had the trip of a lifetime! We both arrived from different countries on different days and Adidas made sure that the logistics were all taken care of and our arrivals and transfers were seamless.

As for Kilimanjaro, we couldn't have been happier with the experience and the team that we had. We took the Lemosho Route and summited a day early, reducing the climb from 7 days to 6, as we did not suffer from altitude sickness and were ready to go a day ahead of schedule. We organized a day trip to Arusha Hot Springs through Chiefs Tours for the extra day then returned to Moshi, all were so lovely.

I would definitely recommend Chiefs Tours to anyone considering Kilimanjaro, our guides (Msafiri and Heaven) and our entire team (particularly Juma) were amazing. They made sure all of our needs and interests were met at every step of the way, with massive smiles! Also, we really noted and liked that they all were wearing appropriate and proper gear and equipment for the climb which many other porters were not.

Adidas is running an ethically credible company, with the friendliest and best staff. Asante sana!

OleksandrKiev, Ukraine

I made an excellent decision by choosing to Climb Kilimanjaro with Chief Tours for the following four reasons:

First, in regards to "social responsibility" and the treatment of the crew (food and lodging), after spending 6 days climbing with Chief Tours, I can testify that Chief Tours meets or exceeds other tour operators.

Second, unlike many of the Kilimanjaro operators, Chief Tours is a Tanzanian company. Therefore, instead of losing a majority of the profit to a head office in Europe, America, or Australia, the profit goes toward developing the local community by way of better wages for Chief Tours employees.

Third, Octait (my guide) was exceptional. He knew all of the short-cuts and ensured that I was well rested and hydrated at all times.

Fourth, every day I was served a wide array of fresh and delicious foods. The foods included: Beef, Fish, Chicken, Mango, Pineapple, Avocado, Cassava, and many more.

I would definitely recommend Chief's Tours!

JackNew York, USA

If you go with anyone else, you’re doing it wrong!

My wife and I, along with 8 friends, recently spent two weeks seeing Tanzania with Chief’s Tours. Adidas was there to greet us at 10:00 PM on a Saturday night when we got off the plane, and only stepped up the service from there. He arranged for a driver to pick us up the next morning and take us to relax with plenty of drinks and our own cook at some local hot springs, then gave us a thorough briefing and gear check before setting off the next day to climb Kilimanjaro on an 8-day trek of the Lemosho route.

The climb could not have been smoother. Our guides (Emmanuel, Emanuel 2, Mohammed, and Niklaus) were experienced, knowledgeable, and a pleasure to spend our eight days with. The staff of cooks and porters were equally professional. They took special care of my wife and me who have very specific dietary restrictions. Actually, they were much more accommodating of our diets than Delta/KLM was, and the food was outstanding! Ask Mateo to make you his lentil “Amaze-balls” (my term, not his). There was never a point on this trip where I felt the least bit hungry or unsatisfied. When it came time for our summit day, our lead guide, Emmanuel Washington, really put his 189 summits worth of experience on Kilimanjaro to good use. He told us exactly when to wake up, when we would get started, and how long our group would take it to make it to the rim at Stella Point by sunrise. He absolutely nailed it! We hit Stella Point just as the first rays of light hit the horizon and were rewarded with the most amazing sunrise I’ve ever seen. Emmanuel then took a camera from one of our group members and ran around (at 19,000 ft remember) taking photos of everyone in the group making their way along the rim the rest of the way to the summit!

Our guides were also accommodating when a couple other members of the group and I wanted to take a couple side trips along the way and climb Shira Cathedral and Lava Tower. They went above and beyond the whole time.

Following the climb, we went on a four-day safari. This was initially an issue because we needed to do laundry following our climb in order to have clothes for the safari and our hotel wasn’t going to be able to get it done in time. Another group member emailed Adidas hoping he’d know of a laundromat where we could take our clothes that evening. Instead, one of his employees came to our hotel within 30 minutes to get all of our laundries. It was dry cleaned and delivered to us at our first safari stop over five hours away the next morning!

The safari itself was incredible. Our driver, Arnold, knew right where to take us to see all of the animals. We had incredibly close encounters with elephants, lions, hippos, warthogs, giraffes, etc. He even got us within just a few feet of a pride of lions feeding on a wildebeest! Accommodations on the safari were the first-rate, especially considering that we went with the mid-tier option. I don’t know what’s included when you option up from mid-tier, but it would have to be pretty impressive to beat our experience.

We had a day in Moshi after our safari was over and figured we would just walk around and shop a bit. We went to breakfast and were then pleasantly surprised to see our mountain guide Emanuel waiting to greet us in the hotel lobby. He had come to walk with us around Moshi and make sure we made it to all of the best places. He even walked us to a small village of artists hidden within a park in the middle of the city where my wife and I got our favorite new painting. We would never have found that place on our own. Adidas then arrived to see us off to the airport in plenty of time for our flight back to the US.

Like I said before, if you’re going to Tanzania and not booking your activities through Chief’s Tours, you’re doing it wrong.

Daniel S.USA

From the first contact onward, the communication went really well. Chief Tours answered all our questions within less than one hour which was excellent as I have booked the tour with them short-notice and still had tons of questions.
We have been warmly welcomed in Moshi at the bus station by the owner and Ceo of Chief Tours, Adidas. He also took immediately care about one of our luggage which went missing in Nairobi.

His Team, especially Julius and Msafiri the two guides have so many experiences with guiding us slowly to the top of the mountain. Both of us made, it thanks to them.
The chef James was providing delicious meals out of his very simple kitchen every day. We could not stop eating and gained actually some weight at the mountain.
The waitress, as well as some porters, taught us some Swahili words which were really great.
If my friends or family would ask me for a recommendation, I definitely would recommend Chief Tours for the Kili hike. They will be in good hands.

Sabina S.England

Rongai Route (6-8 days)

Itinerary

DAY 1: NALEMORU GATE TO SIMBA CAMP

Elevation: 1990m to 2625m

Distance covered: 8km / 5mi

time taken: 4 - 5 hours

Meals: Lunch & Dinner

DAY 2: SIMBA CAMP TO 2ND CAVE CAMP

The morning hike is a steady ascent up to the Second Cave Camp located in the moorland zone with superb views of Kibo and the Eastern ice fields on the crater rim.

Elevation: 2625m to 3480m

Distance covered: 5km / 3.1mi

time taken: 3 - 4 hours

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 3: 2ND CAVE CAMP TO KIKELEWA CAMP

Elevation: 3480m to 3630m

Distance covered: 5km / 3.1mi

time taken: 3 - 4 hours

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 4: KIKELEWA CAMP TO MAWENZI HUT

Elevation: 3630m to 4310m

Distance covered: 8km / 5mi

time taken: 4 - 5 hours

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 5: MAWENZI HUT TO KIBO HUT

Elevation: 4310m to 4700m

Distance covered: 8km / 5mi

time taken: 5 - 6 hours

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 6: KIBO HUT TO UHURU PEAK DOWN TO HOROMBO HUT

Elevation: 4700m to 5895m down to 3700m

Distance covered: 22km / 13.7mi

time taken: 12 – 15 hours

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

DAY 7: HOROMBO HUT TO MARANGU GATE, BACK TO TOWN

Elevation: 3700m to 1860m

Distance covered: 20.8km / 12.9mi

time taken: 8 hours

Meals: Breakfast & Lunch

PRICE OF 2022

To meet a significant number of climbers’ demand, we are happy to provide you with a wide range of Kilimanjaro tours divided into 03 types: Budget – Standard – Luxury. Below is the price of Standard offers. For Budget and Luxury options, kindly contact us. Asante sana!

Inclusion

Exclusion

DAY 2: SIMBA CAMP TO 2^ND CAVE CAMP

DAY 3: 2^ND CAVE CAMP TO KIKELEWA CAMP