Everest Basecamp VS Kilimanjaro: Which is Harder?

Now that I have successfully trekked both Everest Basecamp and Kilimanjaro summit, I can give my comparisons, and my opinion on which was more difficult.

Spoiler alert: BOTH were difficult. Neither is just a cute and scenic walk through a National Park, or a trendy jog around Runyon Canyon. Both are intense, extreme, and do require a certain level of physical and mental preparedness.

Another spoiler alert: Overall, EBC was harder, however the hardest day out of both hikes, was the summit of Kilimanjaro.

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Ok! Now for my explanation on the difficulties (and easiness) of each:

Everest Basecamp Trek

In all honesty, for the first few days of EBC, I thought the trek was easier than Kilimanjaro. And then suddenly it wasn’t. Here’s why.

The numbers for Everest Basecamp:

• EBC takes 11 days of trekking
• 8 of those days are the ascent, with two of them being “acclimization days”, which are ROUGH
• The 3 days it takes to get back to the beginning are the longest distances and trekking times
• On average, we trekked 6 hours per day, with the longest day being 12 hours for basecamp
• The highest altitude we reached was at basecamp, 5,364 meters (17,598 feet)

What Made Everest Basecamp Trek Easier than Kilimanjaro:

• Villages and Cultural Sites: the fact that there were little villages and cultural sites to see throughout the trek made the trip seem like we were also sightseeing rather than just seeing nature
• Teahouses instead of Tents: the teahouses are like lodges, and they have a fire in the dining room at night where you can hang out and eat. They also have (rather nice) beds and bedding, and most rooms had clean bathrooms, and electricity outlets
• Restaurants and Cafes: instead of eating camp-meals, we had three meals per day either at the teahouses or cafes. The menu was diverse…but essentially the same every day.
• Wifi and Electricity: we had access to electricity the entire time except for 4 days due to a storm shutting it off. I had a local SIM that worked for whatsapp, and Wifi was available to purchase at the teahouses.
• The trek is RARELY incline only! This is a major difficulty factor! On EBC the trail alternated between up, down, and flat most days except acclimation days.

What Made Everest Basecamp Trek More Difficult Than Kilimanjaro

• The length of time; 11 days is just a lot.
• Long distances and trekking times. I felt Kili had some shorter days
• THE COLD! I went in off season, so it was colder than normal, but at night I hear it always gets cold in teahouses, and that was probably the hardest obstacle for me. (See my EBC tips post for how to stay warm).
• Amount of time above 5,000 meters. We stayed a lot longer at the high altitudes which was difficult on our bodies and minds
• Less hospitable guides: compared to the guides of Kilimanjaro, our EBC guides seemed a lot less experienced and less concerned about us as guests. At times they would spend more time taking photos of themselves, and after basecamp it was like they were just done and would walk very far in front of us, leaving me to figure out footing on the trail, and the slower paced guests to walk by themselves.
• Less preparation and good advice; we were not informed what happens with electricity outages, or about sleeping with hot water bags, and we were told not to take Diamox (altitude sickness pills) which everyone did but one person, and they got very sick
• The last four extremely long days: compared to the one awful long day of Kili, the EBC trek has four. Basecamp day and the 3 days after that to get back to Lukla seem never-ending.

Kilimanjaro Summit Trek

Now that I think about doing Kilimanjaro in comparison to EBC, it does seem “less difficult”, but it was still hard AF.

The Numbers for Kilimanjaro Trek:

• 8 days total
• 6 days ascent including one day for the summit
• 2 days to get down
• Average 5 hours per day trekking, longest day is summit day with 14+ hours 
• Highest altitude is the summit at 5,895 meters (19,341 feet)

What Made Kilimanjaro Harder than EBC:

• The summit. WIthout a doubt, the summit of Kilimanjaro is harder than any day of EBC. You wake up at 12am and hike straight up in the freezing darkness for about 6-8 hours. Then you get about 10 minutes (I stayed longer because I’m crazy) before the altitude starts to affect you, and then you have to trek allllllll the way down, you get a quick nap at basecamp, then you trek another 6-8 hours down! It was probably the hardest day of my life!
• Tents and No Toilets: I enjoy camping, but it does make a multi-day hike a bit more difficult to only use tents and no bathrooms. We had one tent-toilet, but for the most part we used bush-toilets, which, I do prefer peeing in nature than gross toilets, but not pooping. I definitely ‘held it in’ a few times on that trek, and managing my period was a mess.
• More consecutive inclines. Unlike EBC, the way up to Kili summit is, UP. Then you go straight down. The straight down caused severe leg pain for me afterwards. I didn’t have any leg pain after EBC.
• Less food diversity. Although I’ve already complained about the EBC menus being redundant, they at least have food I’ll willingly eat. For Kilimanjaro, options are limited and you don’t get to pick what you want to eat. And if you don’t like it, you either force yourself to eat it, or you don’t eat and therefore lack energy.
• More difficult climbs. Some parts of the trail involve rock climbing.

What Made Kilimanjaro Easier than EBC

• It’s shorter. Kili is only 8 days compared to the 11 day EBC trek
• Some shorter trekking days. There was rarely a day on EBC that we trekked less than 5 hours. On Kili, some of the days are only 3-4 hours.
• More warm days. We were cold every day of EBC (end of Feb/early March), but Kili we had relatively warm days until the higher altitudes.
• I don’t recall being absolutely freezing at night like I was in the EBC teahouses.

CONCLUSION: Everest Basecamp VS Kilimanjaro

• If you haven’t done either hike and plan on doing ONE, I would say do EBC
• If you plan to do both, start with Kili then do EBC.
• If you’ve already done Kili, you will have no problem doing EBC, but prepare to be colder, and to trek for longer.

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xx, Alyssa