An exceptionally long but highly rewarding route on Meru that has it all—or even more than you could wish for: Great landscapes, serious distance, rough mountain biking, incredibly thick vegetation requiring sound orienting skills, and considerable legal challenges.

### Ascent

From Arusha, follow about 5 km the main road to Nairobi until you reach the town of Ngaramtoni. There you branch off right on a good, unpaved road, which heads upwards into the Forestry Reserve. After you 2.5 km, you pass the gate and keep on going N, and after a few km the road becomes steeper and much worse, so a mountain bike is ultimately needed. You basically follow the track until its highest point where it starts descending again (about 2800m). There you deposit your bikes well hidden in the bushes and start hiking.

The vegetation is quite dense, so it is strongly advised to follow what used to be the trail, when this route was officially open and the trail maintained. Basically, the trail is following a ridge, but often it is difficult to find it.

Once vegetation starts to loosen up, you keep climbing the vast W shoulder which consists of vast, steep, and loose scree. When climbing, head slightly to your left, otherwise you end up straight under the peak where the terrain is too steep and rocky to reach the ridge. So you climb the crater about 900m N of the peak. From there, you follow the regular path on the ridge in easy hiking to the top.

### Descent

On the same route. While descending on the Momela route is technically feasible, it is considerably longer, might raise some unnecessary questions, and would leave the bikes homeless.

- Large parts of the route are in the Arusha National Park. Formerly, this route was used as an alternative to the Momella route to climb Meru. Nowadays it is not an official route by TANAPA (the Tanzanian National Park Authority). Technically, a permit by TANAPA would be needed, and with the respective patience and resources it might be even obtained. For the less concerned, it can be done without a permit.
- Reaching the start of the hiking is easily accessible by mountain bike. Driving up there with a car will probably be a major obstacle for the national park authorities and is thus discouraged. This makes the route exceptionally long. While camping opportunities are abundant, it might add up the risk of trouble with Tanapa since camping is only allowed on designated camping places.
- Beside its length, there are two major difficulties:
  1. To get through the vegetation from the hiking start up to the unvegetated shoulders: There used to be a trail, but it is largely unmaintained and thus quite encroached. It still helps to follow it. Don't follow the frequent elephant paths since they lead nowhere but the bush.
  2. The last couple hundred meters to reach the main ridge (and the official path from the Momela route) are rather steep in loose scree.
- The description and the GPS-track provided are based on an ascent attempt whereby the main ridge and the summit were not reached, so this part is based on observation rather than actually covering the ground (→ any followers are welcomed to update the information accordingly).

<h2>Ascent</h2> <p>From Arusha follow about 5km the main road to Nairobi until you reach the town of Ngaramtoni. There you branch off right on a good, unpaved road, which heads upwards into the Forestry Reserve. After you 2.5km you pass the gate and keep on going N and after a few km the road becomes steeper and much worse, so a mountainbike is ultimately needed. You basically follow the track until its highest point where it starts descending again (about 2800m). There you deposit your bikes well hidden in the bushes and start hiking.</p> <p>The vegetation is quite dense, so it is strongly advised to follow what used to be the trail, when this route was officially open and the trail mainained. Basically the trail is following a ridge, but often it is difficult to find it.</p> <p>Once vegetation starts to loosen up you keep climbing the vast W shoulder which consists of vast, steep and loose scree. When climbing head slightly to your left, otherwise you end up straight under the peak where the terrain is too steep and rocky to reach the ridge. So you climb the crater about 900m N of the peak. From there you follow the regular path on the ridge in easy hiking to the top.</p> <h2>Descent</h2> <p>On the same route. While descending on the Momela route is technically feasible, it is considerably longer, might rises some unnecessary questions, and would leave the bikes homeless.</p>

W shoulder  from Ngaramtoni

Camptocamp

camptocamp

Tanzania

<p>Mount Meru, or Socialist Peak as it is also called, is part of the &#8220;Arusha National Park&#8221;. Currently, there is only one allowed route to the summit which starts from Momella Gate and approaches the summit from the E. The climb (and decent) usually takes 3 to 4 days.</p> <p>Although Mount Meru is often only considered the &#8220;small brother&#8221; of Kilimanjaro, the peak is a worthwile climb on its own rather than a pure acclimatisation tour for Kili. The climb offers spendid landscapes, flora of all different climatic zones and usually some game watching in the lower part.</p> <p>There is quite a lot of information on <a href="http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/150789/mount-meru.html">summitpost</a> with a route description and several trip reports.</p>

W shoulder from Ngaramtoni

Details

Ascent

Descent

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