Kilimanjaro is five climates stacked on top of each other. You start warm and humid in the rainforest, cross open moorland where the sun burns and the wind bites, walk an alpine desert that swings from hot noon to freezing night, and finish in arctic conditions on summit night, well below freezing with wind on top.

If you are waiting to feel ready, you will wait forever, because nobody feels ready for a mountain they have never climbed.

Every Kilimanjaro climber leaves the mountain with the same thought. I wish someone had told me. Here are the things we hear most often, collected from hundreds of post climb conversations.

If you are wondering whether you are too old to climb Kilimanjaro, the answer is almost certainly no. Here are the real age statistics, what older climbers need to know, and how to climb safely at any age.

Day six. The climb to Barafu Camp. The final camp before summit night. The point at which the mountain stops being beautiful and starts being serious.

Kilimanjaro is not a technical climb. It does not require mountaineering experience. It does not require exceptional fitness. It requires the ability to walk uphill for six to eight hours per day across eight consecutive days.

The overall Kilimanjaro summit success rate is approximately 65 percent. You will see this number cited repeatedly in guides and operator websites, often without much context.

A rush of excitement so powerful I actually punched the air in my kitchen. And then, approximately four seconds later, a wave of absolute terror that made me sit down and stare at the wall for a good three minutes.