Best Tanzanian mountains for climbing and hiking

Before we list and discuss the mountains in Tanzania that every dyed-in-the-wool adventurer should know about, we want to briefly explain the lay of the land so that you know where there are mountains in the country ...

Map of mountains in Tanzania

Tanzania is more or less bisected down the middle by the East African Rift Valley, a massive continental rift zone that has defined much of its topography. One of the legacies of this seismic activity has been the creation of various volcanic peaks, including Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Meru.

The Eastern Arc Mountains are another important range running down the length of the country; this ancient range has led to some of the country's most biodiverse montane habitats. And then there are also some isolated ranges dotted around the country, like the Mahale Mountains in the far west.

With this mountain map in mind, let's now discuss the best peaks for summit treks as well as the best mountain ranges in terms of single-day hikes and multiday treks.

Mt Kilimanjaro's Kibo Cone seen from above

Mount Kilimanjaro is 5,895 m (19,341 ft) above sea level. This volcanic mountain is located in the East African Rift in the far north of Tanzania, right against the border with Kenya.

Kilimanjaro is justifiably famous. This is because it's not only Tanzania's tallest mountain, but also Africa's tallest mountain and the world's tallest free-standing mountain!

Given its proximity to the Equator, coupled with its extreme height, Kilimanjaro has a fascinating range of climates. At its base, you have agricultural land where you find coffee and banana farms. Higher up, you find beautiful rainforest, followed by moorland and heath, then alpine desert. Finally, you have an arctic summit region where there are permanent glaciers as well as snow in season. This is why we say climbing Kilimanjaro is like trekking from the Equator to the North Pole in a matter of days!

Most people who climb Kilimanjaro stay in tents

Kilimanjaro offers a thrilling multiday adventure that every year attracts thousands of trekkers from all over the globe. There are three peaks you can climb:

Mawenzi, though lower than Uhuru, is a technical climbing peak. Uhuru Peak, on the other hand, is a non-technical trekking peak. This makes Kilimanjaro the tallest mountain in the world that can be climbed without any mountaineering experience nor equipment. Regular trekkers from around the world therefore flock to the mountain in a bid to reach the top of one of the world's Seven Summits!

If you're interested in summiting Uhuru Peak, then you should know that the trek takes five to nine days depending on the route you choose. There are seven ascent routes of differing steepness and durations. The longer, gentler routes allow for better acclimatisation and therefore have higher success rates.

If you're ready to book a Kilimanjaro climb, please take a look at our exciting Kilimanjaro trekking packages. Or you can download our free Kilimanjaro "All you need to know" PDF below to learn more about the adventure.

The summit of Meru as seen from Saddle Hut halfway up the mountain

Mt Meru is located within Arusha National Park in the north of Tanzania.

Meru is Kilimanjaro's shorter and therefore less famous volcanic cousin. It's highest point – Socialist Peak – reaches 4,562 m (14,977 ft) above sea level. The distance as the bird flies between the highest points on Meru and Kilimanjaro is just 70 km (43 miles). Wonderfully, this means you enjoy great views of Kilimanjaro whenever you climb Meru.

The base of the Meru is savannah and is home to lots of wildlife who thrive on the abundance of water. Higher up you have a varied montane forest band, which includes rainforest, bamboos and African redwoods. Above this there's striking moorland and heather, where you can find similar beauties to those on Kilimanjaro, like giant lobelias, giant groundsels, ericas, St John's wort and everlastings.

Finally, the crater at the summit is an alpine desert landscape, harsh but beautiful, especially when viewed at daybreak. Given that you start your summit attempt at night, you're usually at or near the peak when the sun rises from behind Kilimanjaro in the east and turns the lunar-like landscape of Meru's crater different warm shades. It's a true spectacle worthy of all the effort.

A grey woodpecker spotted in the forest on Meru

Speaking of the effort of reaching the summit, you should know that climbing Meru is a challenging high-altitude trek of three or four days. There's just one main route to the summit, though you can take a fork near the bottom to vary a part of your descent route. Everyone doing the trek stays in hutted campsites.

What's particularly special about trekking Meru is that it offers more wildlife sightings than Kilimanjaro. This is because Meru's lower slopes are home to diverse wildlife, including some large game like elephants buffaloes, giraffes, bushbucks and even leopards and hyenas. For this reason, you do the trek not only in the company of a guide, but also with an armed ranger, just to be safe.

There are also smaller animals to look for on a Meru climb, like duikers, warthogs, black-and-white colobus and blue monkeys. Moreover, above 400 bird species have been spotted here, including crowned eagles, Hartlaub's turacos, scarlet-chest sunbirds and Abyssinian crimsonwings.

If you'd like to know more about this exciting adventure, please read How hard is it to climb Mt Meru? or check out our four-day Mt Meru climbing package.

A Maasai shepherd with Ol Doinyo Lengai behind him

Mt Ol Doinyo Lengai is an active volcano that rises 2,962 m (9,718 ft) above the savannah of northeastern Tanzania. This conical mountain sits alongside the Great Rift Valley escarpment. It's also just a stone's throw from Lake Natron, which in turn touches the border with Kenya to the north. Anyone wishing to visit or climb Ol Doinyo Lengai, will stay at one of the campsites on the shore of Lake Natron.

Ol Doinyo Lengai is sacred to the Maasai people. In fact, Ol Doinyo Lengai means “Mountain of God” in the Maasai language.

Ol Doinyo Lengai presides over hot savannah

Ol Doinyo Lengai offers an incredibly challenging and daring climb that takes around 10 hours to complete. Given the heat in these lowlands during the day, you start the hike at night, aiming to enjoy the sunrise from the crater rim. You then descend during the morning hours.

It's important to note that the gradient is very steep, and there's plenty of loose scree to navigate. These elements, together with the night-time ascent, are what make the hike such a worthy challenge for adventure lovers.

We offer this hike as part of our exciting Safari and hiking itinerary, or we can happily create a customised itinerary for you – you need only ask! Or if you'd just like to know more about the adventure, please read Hike Ol Doinyo Lengai: East Africa’s most challenging one-day climb.

Note that you'll do the hike in the company of a local Maasai guide, so you can look forward to learning all about the volcano and its religious significance, as well as about the surrounding landscape and any wildlife that you see. June to August are the best months for climbing Ol Doinyo Lengai.

The edge of the Usambara plateau

The Usambare Mountains are located in the far northeast corner of Tanzania, a stone's throw from the Indian Ocean to the east and Kenya to the north.

This thickly forested, misty and craggy Usambare Mountain range is part of the Eastern Arc Mountains, a very ancient geographical feature that's distinct from the overlapping East African Rift. Over time, the Eastern Arc's various sub mountain ranges have become spread out and isolated from one another, leading to biomes of exceptionally high biodiversity. In fact, the Eastern Arc Mountains have been dubbed the Galagos of Africa.

An Usambara violet

The Usambare Mountains consists of two distinct subranges separated by the Lwengera Valley:

If you're keen to hike in the West Usambare mountains, you can choose from several options, ranging from easy half-day hike to guided multiday treks. The region is home to the very hospitable Sambaa people, and many treks here include a wonderful cultural immersion element. A popular day hike is the challenging rainforest trail in Magamba Nature Reserve where you should keep your eyes open for horned chameleons, paradise flycatchers and wild-looking funghi.

If you head into the quieter, less-visited East Usambare Mountains, we highly recommend doing on a guided birding walk in Amani Nature Reserve. Over 335 bird species have been recorded in the reserve, including the endangered Amani sunbird, the Usambara red-headed bluebill, banded green sunbird, long-billed tailorbird, Usambara eagle owl and Sokoke scops owl.

Mount Hanang is a dormant volcano

Mount Hanang can be found rising up out of the picturesque Mang'ati Plains in central Tanzania, just a stone's throw from the Rift Valley's Malbadow Escarpment. Its profile is a fairly neat cone, with the highest of its three peaks being 3,417 m (11,211 ft) above sea level. This makes it the third highest mountain in Tanzania.

The base of Hanang is ringed by lush groundwater forest. Higher up, you have montane forest. Next you find grassland and bushland, and then, starting at around 2,700 m mark, you have beautiful moorland reaching all the way to the summit.

Hanang is sacred to the Gorowa and Barbaig tribes. These beliefs have played an important role in its conservation, helping to limit the amount of illegal logging and other practices that can degrade the landscape.

The ridge you hike to the peak of Hanang

Climbing from the base to the summit of Hanang involves an elevation gain of about 2,220 m – a tall order! You can tackle the mountain over one long day, or spread it out over two days, and camp for the night.

Some say Hanang offers the hardest single-day climb in Tanzania. The other contender for this title is Ol Doinyo Lengai, which is about 500 m lower and has an elevation gain of just 1,600 m, but whose steep slopes offer very unsure footing given the ubiquitous scree and whose hot environment makes you climb it at night. Whatever the verdict, Hanang is certainly a very challenging one-day climb!

The two-day camping option is naturally a little more relaxed, and gives you more leisure to explore your surroundings. Either way, the uphill climb takes about five to six hours, and the downhill hike about three or four hours. Fortunately, you don't go quite high enough for long enough on Hanang for altitude to become a proper issue.

Climbing Hanang with a guide and employing the services of a mountain crew is a great way to support the local economy and help with the ongoing conservation of this special mountain landscape. It's also a more culturally immersive experience as you can learn about the local cultures and their religious beliefs concerning mountain.

What's more, camping near the summit affords you incredible sunset and sunrise views of the savannah and Lake Balangida below, as well as the Rift Valley escarpment to the west.

Sanje Waterfall in the Udzungwas

We can't say enough good things about the Udzungwa Mountains and Udzungwa Mountains National Park.

Firstly, there's the raw beauty of the range. Deep gorges separate mountain covered in lush forest, rivers and spectacular waterfalls are everywhere, and the whole is regularly threaded with mist. Secondly, the steepness of the landscape together with cultural taboos and the relative isolation of the mountains from other tourist hotspots have helped to keep the ecosystem in truly pristine condition. And thirdly, the mountains are among the most biodiverse on the planet! In fact, the Udzungwa Mountains are sometimes called the Galapagos of Africa given their exceptional biodiversity and high rate of endemism.

Like the Usambare Mountains, the Udzungwas are part of the Eastern Arc Mountains. As you may remember, the Eastern Arc Mountains are an ancient and disjointed chain. The long isolation of each (well-watered) subrange has resulted in various unique ecosystems, each boasting some wickedly impressive biodiversity. The Usambare Mountains are no exception.

A Livingstone's turaco

Hikers and trekkers can take their pick when it comes to exploring the Udzungwa Mountains. You can opt for anything from the one-hour Sanje Waterfall Trail to the five-day Lumemo Trail. A very popular one-day hike is that leading to the top of Sanje Waterfall; you gain about 450 m in elevation en route to the top of this 170 m-tall tiered waterfall for a fantastic view over the forest canopy that blankets Kilombero Valley.

Whatever trail you choose, be on the lookout for the diverse and rare wildlife that populate the landscape. For instance, there are large mammals like buffaloes and elephants, as well as smaller and rarer species like red-legged sun squirrels, red, blue and Abbott's duikers, Livingstone's sunis (very tiny antelopes) and giant elephant shrews.

The forest also boasts Tanzania's widest selection of primates, including four endemics, one of which is the recently discovered kipunji monkey. As to birds, there are over 400 species to be found in the park, including rufous-winged sunbirds, Udzungwa forest partridges, dapple-throats, Iringa akalats, southern banded snake eagles, trumpeter hornbills, Livingstone’s turacos and green-headed orioles.

The Mahale Mountains drop down steeply into Lake Tanganyika

The Mahale Mountains are an isolated range on the western border of Tanzania that runs in a neat SE to NW line. More specifically, the range occupies a peninsula jutting into Lake Tanganyika, which makes for a dramatic landscape where it meets the lake as there's only a narrow beach before the land rises steeply upwards, often disappearing into cloud.

All this said, the Mahale Mountains are not well visited. The reason for this is their distance from the country's popular safari circuits and major airports. You can, in fact, only reach the mountains by air or boat, which gives you a good idea of their remoteness! This is, therefore, a fantastic mountain range to visit if you're keen to hike somewhere that's off the beaten track and mostly devoid of other tourists.

It's also a very beautiful mountain range, being covered in various types of forest including miombo woodland and montane rainforest. The different habitats are able to harbour an astonishing array of birdlife and butterflies, as well as eight primate species and many large mammals like leopards, rare roan and sable antelopes, and even rarer brush-tailed porcupines.

Finally, we must just add that the sunsets over Lake Tanganyika are famously beautiful. So photographers will be in their element here.

A male chimpanzee spotted in the Mahale Mountains

Many people come to Mahale Mountains National Park to go on a guided chimpanzee trek. And we highly recommend doing this! Habituated chimp troops make sightings almost guaranteed.

If, however, you're more interested in a traditional mountain trek, then we suggest climbing Mount Nkungwe, which at 2,520 m (8,268 ft), Nkungwe is the highest mountain in the Mahale Mountains range.

Climbing Nkungwe is a rewarding two- or three-day trek that involves an elevation gain of nearly 1,700 m and involves overnighting in tented camps. During the trek you hike up through bamboo and montane forest, where there's a small population of black-and-white colobus monkeys. At around the 2,300 m mark, the forest disappears and is replaced with grassland.

Nkungwe is sacred to the local Tongwe people, and your guide will be able to give you all of the interesting details about its history and lore. As to timing, June to October is generally the best season for dry trails and clear views from the summit. And you definitely want a clear view from the summit, because there's nothing quite like standing atop Nkungwe Peak and gazing out over the forested Mahale Mountains and the vast expanse of Lake Tanganyika for feeling like you're on top of the world!

A portion of the pretty Livingstone Mountains

Tanzania is a large country – one with many dramatic and beautiful volcanic peaks and mountain ranges. So we really can't focus on all of the mountains offering summit treks or rewarding single and multiday hikes. That said, we do want to mention the following mountain ranges and peaks, which you might wish to research for yourself if you're heading to Tanzania for some adventure:

At Follow Alice, we take the welfare of our mountain crews seriously

Please do your best to trek responsibly when in Tanzania to protect the integrity of the beautiful and unique ecosystems you're visiting. You can learn more on this topic in 7 ways to educe your eco footprint when hiking, trekking or camping.

If you're making use of a local guide or mountain crew, which will almost assuredly be the case on any multiday trek, please research reputable operators who treat their staff well. For Kilimanjaro and Meru, for instance, where there's a well-established trekking industry, please look for a tour operator that's a registered partner of the Kilimanjaro Responsible Trekking Organisation (KRTO), formerly KPAP. KRTO has a strict screening process and only endorses companies who treat their staff ethically and pay them fairly. You can learn more on this important topic in How to climb Kilimanjaro sustainably and responsibly.

Please also budget for tipping your guide or crew. Tips are customary in Tanzania and are often an important source of supplemental income.

Keen to know more about hiking or trekking in Tanzania? We'd love to help! Just reach out to us via our enquiry form and one of our local travel experts will be in touch with you shortly. It's that easy.