Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest free-standing mountain on Earth — it rises 5,895 metres straight out of the plains of northern Tanzania on its own, not as part of any range, which also makes it the highest point in Africa. It is really three volcanic cones grown together: the worn-down stumps of Shira and Mawenzi, and Kibo, the youngest and highest, which carries the summit named Uhuru Peak. Kibo is not extinct but dormant — fumaroles still vent sulphurous gas inside its summit crater. In 1964 that summit was renamed Uhuru, Swahili for 'freedom', to mark the birth of independent Tanzania. The whole massif and its ring of rainforest form Kilimanjaro National Park, made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 for its natural drama.
What sets Kilimanjaro apart from other great peaks is that you can walk to its summit — no ropes, no ice-axe skills — which is why around 50,000 people set out to climb it each year. The route to the top climbs through five climate zones stacked on one mountain: farmland gives way to dense montane rainforest, then open moorland, then a cold alpine desert like the surface of the moon, and finally ice and glacier at the crater rim. Guides hold everyone to one Swahili phrase, 'pole pole' — slowly, slowly — because the real difficulty is not the terrain but the thin air. Crest the rim at first light and Africa spreads out far below the clouds. But the snow at the equator is fading fast: the ice cap has lost about 85 percent of its cover since 1912, worn away less by melting than by sublimation, and researchers expect the glaciers to be largely gone by around 2050.