Get to Know Kilimanjaro National Park
This snow-capped peak near the equator in Africa is one of the world’s Seven Summits climbing challenges
Kilimanjaro changed the way people thought of Africa. The first European missionary to see a snow-capped mountain this close to the equator in Africa was regarded as crazy and sent home in 1848. Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcanic mountain in Kilimanjaro National Park, Tanzania. It’s the highest peak in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain in the world. For more than a century people have been climbing it, the first successful attempt by German geologist Hans Meyer in 1889. Today there are seven trekking routes on Kilimanjaro – six up to the summit and one, called Mweka, which everyone uses for the descent.