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.

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.

I climbed Kilimanjaro on Mounjaro, 20kg lighter than my last attempt, and told absolutely nobody. Here is what actually happened.

Altitude is the variable that determines everything on Kilimanjaro. Here is what it actually does to your body and how to give yourself the best possible chance.