The Shira plateau offers climbers the taste of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro without necessarily reaching the Uhuru peak summit point. At the Shira Plateau, you will enjoy breathtaking views of Mount Kilimanjaro and its surroundings.
The Shira Plateau stretches about 13 km across the western side of the mountain at an elevation of 3,500-3,962 meters above sea level making it one of the highest plateaus in the world.
Key Points
The formation of the Shira plateau on Mount Kilimanjaro occurred long ago, about 500,000 years ago from an ancient caldera that has thus eroded over a significant amount of time to form a plateau on the base of the volcanic pit.
Get active and hike on the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro on this day trip, we leave Arusha and drive eastwards towards Tanzania´s highest mountains – the Mount Meru and Kilimanjaro. farm with stunning views of Kilimanjaro, Mount Meru and the Maasai Steppes before giving way first to plantation forest and finally to indigenous forest.
You will have an experienced expert trekking guide with you, well versed in mountain flora and fauna as well as wilderness medicine and rescue.
Starting the hike
Once through the park gate at Londorossi, we do the registrations, then the road limbs more steeply up a rough track moving quickly through the different layers of vegetation from thick mountain forest with towering trees gradually giving way to the giant heath and moorlands. These giants vegetations initially tower ten to fifteen feet high but as we get higher, they become gradually shorter and fewer, when we crest the final rise on the plateau, they are only a few feet high.
From the trailhead/Parking area at the edge of the Plateau we’ll start the walk, moving toward East of Simba River, the terrain is mostly flat, with 2 seasonal rivers valleys and miles of unspoilt wilderness, it’s for this reason Shira Plateau has been listed as world heritage site.
In 3-3.5 hours’, time we’ll reach Shira 1 camp, our final destination, from here you can sav or breath-taking views of Kilimanjaro Summit rising out of the vast plains. Time and energy permits, you can explore more of the Plateau and hike up to almost 4000m around Shira Cathedral as long as you feel comfortable. After lunch we start descending to the parking area and board the vehicle and bump back down the track and across the plains arriving back at the hotel late evening.
