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4-Day Mount Meru Trek
The full four-day route up Mount Meru — forest wildlife, the crater-rim ridge and a dawn summit — done at...
Tanzania's second-highest mountain at 4,566 m, rising inside Arusha National Park — the best acclimatisation climb before Kilimanjaro, and a spectacular trek in its own right.
Mount Meru is an old volcano whose eastern side blew out in a huge collapse, leaving a sheer horseshoe cliff around an inner ash cone. The climb — normally three or four days — follows the crater rim on a knife-edge ridge to Socialist Peak (4,566 m), with the summit push made in the dark to reach the top for sunrise, Kilimanjaro floating above the clouds 70 km to the east.
Because it sits inside Arusha National Park, the lower forest is full of wildlife: buffalo, giraffe, warthog and colobus monkeys are common on the trail, so an armed park ranger walks with every group. Many climbers do Meru specifically as a warm-up a few days before Kilimanjaro, and the extra time at altitude measurably improves their summit chances. It is a demanding trek — steep, exposed in places — but needs no technical skill.
