Mt Kilimanjaro National Park

The ecosystem around Kilimanjaro is protected by Kilimanjaro National Park. Here, farmland gives way to thick lowland forest, then to alpine meadows. As one climbs through thinning air towards the peak, the landscape becomes gradually harsher and more barren, with loose rocks and ice providing the obstacles over which exhausted climbers must scramble on their way upward. Around 15,000 people a year attempt to climb Kilimanjaro, but only 40% reach the Kibo, the official summit point . The reward for those who do make it is great – a spectacular sunrise view over the Masaai steppe, the Rift Valley and Amboseli National Park in Kenya, a seemingly unimaginable earthly world of heat and dust.