Climbed via the Machame route — nicknamed the "Whiskey Route" — one of the more scenic approaches to the summit, roughly 62km gate to gate. The standard path climbs through rainforest from Machame Gate, opens onto the Shira Plateau, passes Lava Tower, then drops to Barranco Camp beneath Kilimanjaro's Southern Ice Fields. From there it's the Barranco Wall — a steep but non-technical scramble — through Karanga Valley to Barafu Camp, the base for the final push. The last stretch to Uhuru Peak is typically a night ascent: hours of switchbacks up loose gravel to Stella Point on the crater rim, then a final, relatively flat hour on to the summit itself.
| Day | Route |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | Machame Gate → first camp |
| Day 2 | On to Shira Cave Camp |
| Day 3 | Acclimatization — working toward Barranco |
| Day 4 | Barranco Camp → Barafu Base Camp |
| Day 5 | Summit — Uhuru Peak, the roof of Africa |
| Day 6 | Descent |
An Indian flag went up at the summit, and the story made newspapers back home within days — the public version of this arrived faster and cleaner than the private one ever got written down. What's confirmed: six days on the Machame route, booked through Kitano Tours and Safaris for $700, and a successful summit in September 2022, a genuinely good weather window for the mountain.