Mount Meru

Mount Meru stands directly above the city of Arusha, about 70 km west of Kilimanjaro. At 4,566 m (14,980 ft) it is the second-highest mountain in Tanzania and one of the highest in Africa, yet it sees only a small fraction of Kilimanjaro's climbers.

A Volcano Blown Open

Meru was once a much larger cone. A huge collapse tore away its eastern side, leaving a horseshoe-shaped crater open to the east and a line of cliffs that rise about 1,500 m from the crater floor to the summit, among the tallest in Africa. Inside the crater sits the Ash Cone, a younger volcano built by later eruptions. Meru last erupted in 1910 and is considered dormant.

A Climb That Starts as a Safari

The mountain lies inside Arusha National Park, and the first day of the climb crosses open glades and forest where giraffe, buffalo, warthog and black-and-white colobus monkeys are regularly seen. For that reason every group climbs with an armed park ranger.

Meru and Kilimanjaro

Many climbers use Meru to acclimatise before Kilimanjaro: three or four days up to 4,566 m is ideal preparation, and the views of Kilimanjaro from Meru's summit at dawn are some of the best there are. But Meru deserves to be climbed for its own sake. The final ridge along the crater rim is more dramatic than anything on Kilimanjaro's standard routes.