Everyone can picture the summit photograph. Almost nobody can picture Tuesday. And it is Tuesday, the ordinary middle day of a climb, that people are really asking about when they ask whether they could do this: what happens all day up there, what is the rhythm, when do you rest, what do you actually do?

Of all the questions we answer before a climb, this is the one where the truth most outperforms the expectation. People picture ration packs, energy gels and a week of grim chewing.

This is the great dinner-table debate of world trekking, and it is really a choice between two opposite prizes. Kilimanjaro gives you a summit of your own: the highest point in Africa, under your boots, earned. Everest Base Camp gives you an audience with the king: a two-week walk through the greatest mountain range on earth to stand at the foot of the highest mountain of all.

The final comparison in this series is the closest to our hearts, because these two mountains share a horizon. Mount Meru stands barely seventy kilometres from Kilimanjaro, close enough that from Meru's summit ridge at dawn you watch the sun rise directly behind the Roof of Africa, floating on the clouds across the plain.

Africa's two greatest mountains stand a border apart, and the comparison between them is the connoisseur's favourite, because it is the only one in this series where the quieter, lower, cheaper mountain has a genuine claim to being the more beautiful.

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.

Ask the internet which are the two "easiest" of the Seven Summits and it will hand you the same pair every time: Kilimanjaro and Elbrus. And that lazy label hides the truth, because these two mountains could hardly be more different.

Here is the comparison where the obvious answer is wrong. Kilimanjaro stands more than a kilometre higher than Mont Blanc, so surely it is the harder climb? No. Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain on earth you can simply walk up. Mont Blanc, a full 1,100 metres lower, is a genuine mountaineering ascent: crampons, ice axe, rope, glacier travel and real alpine judgement. Higher is not the same as harder, and choosing between these two is really choosing between two different sp

Two of the most famous walks on earth, one adventure budget, and a decision that keeps coming up at dinner tables everywhere: the Roof of Africa, or the road to Machu Picchu?

There is no official public register of deaths on Kilimanjaro, so treat any precise figure you read online with caution. What is commonly reported is this: tens of thousands of people climb the mountain every year, and in a typical year a small number of deaths are recorded among climbers, most linked to severe altitude illness or to underlying heart conditions revealed by exertion at altitude.

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.

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

The Shira Route suits the experienced trekker who has been to altitude before and knows how their body responds, and the climber who wants the plateau's vast early wilderness more than anything else on the mountain.

The Marangu Route suits the climber who genuinely prefers a hut to a tent, who is climbing in the wetter months and wants a roof each night, or who is watching the budget. It is a reasonable choice for a first climb too, provided you take the six-day version so your body has the time it needs to adjust. If comfort and simplicity matter more to you than scenic variety, Marangu has real and lasting appeal.

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 at the stage of researching major peaks, you are probably comparing these three. They are the dominant names in accessible high-altitude mountaineering for people who are ambitious but not yet technical climbers. They are frequently compared. They are very different mountains.

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.

A responsible operator does not send one guide with ten climbers. The guide ratio matters enormously. At Vertical Sky, our lead guide is supported by assistant guides in a ratio that ensures every climber is properly supervised throughout the expedition.