Rugged and wild on the Shira Route

Far from the beaten path of Kilimanjaro, the Shira Route is rarely used and provides travelers with a rugged path up Tanzania's highest peak.

Making use of the mountain's north side, trekkers who use the Shira Route will have the path's beautiful sights to explore nearly to themselves. The wilderness of the mountains also remains largely untouched, making the trek all the more epic.

The longer path of the Shira Route allows hikers to more adequately acclimatize to the high elevations they will reach throughout their climb. Kilimanjaro is an easy mountain to overstretch one's self and climb too fast, so Shira is good at keeping a journeyer's pace to a reasonable clip.

Although some routes on the north side can be driven up quite far, climbing experts believe that using a car to come up the mountain will lessen an individual's ability to acclimatize, and will likely make their trek much less successful. Although a challenging trek, travelers would be better off using their feet to reach Kilimanjaro's summit.