Here is a truth we have watched play out for years: more Kilimanjaro dreams are killed by other people's calendars than by altitude. You mention the mountain, friends say "definitely, someday", the group chat goes quiet, and the dream sits in committee for a decade. So this piece is for the person considering the braver, simpler option: going alone

Every comparison in this series so far has asked "which one should you do?" This one is different, because for most mountain dreamers these two peaks are not rivals, they are chapters.

Before any numbers, one honest thing needs saying. On some climbs, tips are not a thank-you, they are the wage. Crews on cut-price expeditions can depend on tips to reach a living income, which quietly turns your gratitude into the payroll and puts the welfare of the crew on your conscience instead of the operator's books.

John Evance's attempt has a twist that makes it more interesting than the clock alone. Rather than starting at the Marangu or Umbwe gates, where most previous record attempts have begun

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.

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.

I want to be careful about how I frame this because I am not a therapist and the mountain is not a cure. What I can tell you is that Kilimanjaro did something for my mental health that twenty years of managing depression with medication and therapy had not managed to do. And there is science behind why that might be true.

Every year, tens of thousands of climbers summit Kilimanjaro. The porters who made it possible carry the next group up the mountain. This blog is about them.