Mount Meru
The 15,000ft volcano that stands barely 30 miles away from Mount Kilimanjaro is most definitely in the great mountain's shadow, both in stature and in press coverage! But for those of you who just love hiking for the sake of being out on the open, seeing the landscape and wildlife at the slow pace that walking allows, then Mount Meru is an unheralded chance to scale an impressive peak while also experiencing the uniqueness of the East African Montane environment.
The volcano is a dramatic horseshoe shape created by a calamitous eruption some 250,000 years ago which blew the side out of the mountain. The trek to the summit takes you through open grass plains where buffalo, warthog and giraffe look on with their combination of surprise, interest and trepidation, up in to lush montane forest dominated by beautiful trees such as the East African Rosewood, Giant Yellowwood and the prized Pencil Cedar and on via the heather carpeted moorland areas to the barren upper slopes of the huge volcanic cone. Here the path to the summit snakes its way around the jagged edge of the cone from where the views are very memorable. To the East Kilimanjaro rises above the early morning clouds, while to the West the broad expanse of the Rift Valley is laid out, studded with many smaller but interesting extinct volcanoes.
I recommend four days to complete a climb of Meru, although for strong hikers it can easily be up and down in three. The longer itinerary allows us to spend the final day taking a different route down to the one that we ascend on, a descent that takes in a lot more of the forest and allows for a great view of the volcanic crater and its conical ash cone from below.
next: Ol Donyo Lengai