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Active Kilitop and Safaris

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Ol Doinyo Lengai, the active volcano at the northern end of the Ngorongoro highlands traverse
Trek · Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Two thousand six hundred metres, downhill.

Empakaai is a collapsed volcano with a soda lake and flamingos on its floor, and almost nobody walks it. From its rim you can keep going — north-west out of the highlands, over the edge of the Rift Valley and down to Lake Natron at the foot of an active volcano. On foot, in five days.

Day hikeTwo to three hours
Full traverseFour to five days
Starts atAbout 3,200 m
Ends atAbout 600 m
With youRanger & Maasai guides
Empakaai Two ways to do it Day by day The drop Is it for you Questions Add it to a trip
01

Empakaai, and why nobody is there.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is not one crater. It is a highland of them, and the ones north of the famous one are walked rather than driven.

A caldera with a soda lake in the bottom of it.

Empakaai is six to eight kilometres across, and its walls drop about three hundred metres from a forested rim to the floor. More than half that floor is a deep alkaline lake, and flamingos feed on it in numbers. It is the Ngorongoro Crater’s quiet neighbour and it is a completely different place.

The view off the rim is the best in northern Tanzania.

From around 3,200 metres you look east across the Rift Valley at Ol Doinyo Lengai — the active volcano the Maasai call the Mountain of God — with Lake Natron beyond it, and on a genuinely clear morning Kilimanjaro on the horizon behind that. Very few people are standing there with you.

There is wildlife in the walls, so you walk with a ranger.

Blue monkeys, turacos, sunbirds and bushbuck in the montane forest, and buffalo and elephant moving through it. Every walk in the Conservation Area goes out with an armed park ranger. That is not a formality here — buffalo in thick forest is exactly the situation the rule exists for.

02

Two ways to walk it.

One costs you an afternoon. The other costs you five days and gives you a week you will talk about for years. Both need an armed ranger and both need arranging before you arrive.

Half a day · no extra nights

The Empakaai day hike

An out-and-back from the western rim. Thirty to forty-five minutes of steep descent through montane forest to the lake shore, time on the water’s edge with the flamingos, then sixty to ninety minutes of climbing to get back out. That climb, at three thousand metres, is the whole of the difficulty.

It slots into a normal northern itinerary without adding a night, and it is the single best half day available anywhere near the Ngorongoro Crater.

Takes
Two to three hours on foot
Descent
About 300 m, and back up
Fitness
Moderate — the climb out is real
Needs
An armed ranger, arranged in advance
Four to five days · point to point

The Northern Highlands traverse

Olmoti, Empakaai, then north-west out of the highlands entirely — along the top of the Rift escarpment, down its wall, and out onto the plain at the foot of Ol Doinyo Lengai and Lake Natron. You walk out of one climate and into another.

Camping, donkeys carrying the gear, Maasai guides alongside the ranger, and no other visitors for most of it. This is one of the genuinely wild things left to do in northern Tanzania.

Takes
Four to five days walking
Descent
About 2,600 m, net
Fitness
Good. Long days, big drops, heat
Best months
June to October
03

The traverse, day by day.

Five days from a cold caldera rim to a hot salt lake. The page gets warmer as you scroll it, which is more or less what the walk does.

Day 1Olmoti & the Munge falls

Up onto the rim, and the last easy day

Drive from Arusha or Karatu up through the Ngorongoro gate and on past the main crater rim to Olmoti — a shallow, grassy caldera that almost no vehicle stops at. You walk up onto its rim and out to the head of the Munge waterfall, where the river drops away and runs down into the Ngorongoro Crater itself.

Then the drive on to the Empakaai rim, and camp at around 3,200 metres. It is high, it is exposed, and the temperature falls off a cliff once the sun goes. This is the night people are least prepared for.

Camp at about 3,200 m
Day 2Into Empakaai, then out to Naiyobi

Three hundred metres down to the flamingos

The descent into Empakaai takes thirty to forty-five minutes on a steep path through thick montane forest — blue monkeys, turacos, sunbirds, and bushbuck if you are quiet. Then the trees stop and you are on the shore of a deep alkaline lake that fills more than half the crater floor, with flamingos strung out across it.

The climb back out is sixty to ninety minutes and it is the hard part of the day. From the rim you walk north-west out of the highlands to the Maasai village of Naiyobi, and this is where the trek stops being a hike and starts being a traverse.

The steepest short climb of the week
Day 3Naiyobi to the escarpment

The country changes underneath you

A long day along the top of the Rift Valley escarpment, and the day the landscape turns over completely. Green highland gives way to dry volcanic savannah, the air warms hour by hour, and Ol Doinyo Lengai comes into view ahead and stays there.

You are walking with Maasai guides through country they graze, which is a different kind of walking from a national park — you pass herds, bomas and people going about a normal day rather than a performed one.

Day 4Down the Rift wall

The steep drop, and the heat arrives

The serious descent: down the wall of the Rift Valley to the plain at the foot of Ol Doinyo Lengai. Loose volcanic ash underfoot, no shade to speak of, and a temperature climbing towards the forties by the time you are on the flat.

It is the hardest day on the knees and the one where the water discipline matters. You started the week in a fleece at 3,200 metres; you finish it at around 600, which is a drop of more than two and a half kilometres.

The knees, not the lungs
Day 5Lake Natron, or the volcano

Salt flats — or a midnight start

Two ways to end it. The gentle one is Lake Natron: the flamingo breeding grounds, the waterfall in the gorge behind, and the strangest landscape in Tanzania — caustic, shallow, and blindingly bright.

The other is to climb Ol Doinyo Lengai, and that is a genuinely serious undertaking rather than a bolt-on. You leave around midnight to be off the mountain before the sun turns it into an oven.

Choose one. Not both.
04

The drop, in numbers.

Two and a half kilometres of descent is easy to write down and harder to plan for. This is what the route actually passes through.

~3,100 m

Olmoti rim. A shallow grassland caldera, and the Munge river leaving it over the falls. Day one.

~3,200 m

Empakaai rim. The high point of the whole trek, forested, and where you camp on the first night. Cold enough to surprise people.

−300 m

Down to the lake. The walking descent from the western rim to the shore of the soda lake, and the same again back up. Rim height varies around the caldera, so this is the drop that matters rather than an altitude.

~600 m

Lake Natron. Four days later and two and a half kilometres lower. One of the hottest inhabited places in Tanzania, and where the walk ends.

~2,960 m

Ol Doinyo Lengai. If you take the summit option you climb almost all of that back, at night, in one go, from close to the bottom.

What the drop actually means

You will need clothes for two different countries. The first night on the Empakaai rim can approach freezing and the wind comes across the highlands with nothing to stop it. Four days later you are at around six hundred metres beside Lake Natron, where forty degrees is an ordinary afternoon. Packing for one end of that and not the other is the commonest mistake on this trek.

Water is the discipline, not the distance. There is very little on the escarpment and the descent to Natron has no shade worth the name. Your team carries and resupplies, but the drinking is on you and it starts before you feel thirsty.

How walking safaris work, and the briefing you get →
05

Should you do it?

This is the least suitable-for-everyone thing on our site, and we would rather say so than sell it to the wrong person.

Yes, if
  • You have done a northern circuit already and want the part of it nobody sees.
  • You walk at home — hills, multi-day trails, camping — and want that rather than a vehicle.
  • Landscape moves you more than a lion does. This is the most extraordinary country in Tanzania and it has almost no game in it.
  • You want to spend days with Maasai guides in country they actually live in, rather than an arranged hour in a boma.
  • You can only spare half a day — then do Empakaai on its own, which needs nothing added to your trip.
Probably not, if
  • This is your first trip to Tanzania and you have ten days. Do the parks; come back for this.
  • You want wildlife. You will see monkeys, birds, Maasai livestock and very little else on the traverse.
  • Camping at 3,200 metres in the cold is not something you would enjoy on a good day.
  • Your knees are the weak link. The descent off the Rift wall is long, loose and unforgiving, and it is downhill that ends treks.
  • You are travelling in the long rains. The path into Empakaai is slick mud and the escarpment is worse.
About Ol Doinyo Lengai

It is a separate decision, not a fifth-day extra. The summit climb is five to seven hours of sustained, steep going on loose ash, starting around midnight so that you are off the mountain before the sun turns it into an oven. People who have climbed Kilimanjaro regularly say Lengai was harder, and they mean the gradient and the footing rather than the altitude.

It is also genuinely active. Lengai is the only carbonatite volcano erupting anywhere on earth, and activity closes it from time to time at no notice. If it matters enough to plan around, tell us early and we will tell you what it is doing.

06

Questions we get asked.

Do I need an armed ranger?

Yes, and there is no version of this without one. Every walk inside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area goes out with an armed park ranger, because there are buffalo and elephant in the forest on the Empakaai walls and along the escarpment. On the multi-day traverse you also walk with Maasai guides who know the ground and the people on it.

How fit do I need to be?

For the Empakaai day hike: moderately. It is a thirty-to-forty-five-minute descent and a sixty-to-ninety-minute climb back out at around three thousand metres, which is harder than the same climb at sea level. For the five-day traverse: properly. Long days, big descents, heat at the bottom, and camping at altitude at the top.

Is the altitude a problem?

It is not Kilimanjaro, but sleeping at about 3,200 metres on the first night with no acclimatisation catches people out — headaches, poor sleep, no appetite. If your trip has already spent a few nights around the Ngorongoro rim you will barely notice it. If you have flown in from sea level two days ago, you will.

How hard is Ol Doinyo Lengai, really?

Harder than most people expect, and harder than the summit night on Kilimanjaro for some — not because of altitude but because of the gradient and the footing. It is a sustained climb of five to seven hours on steep, loose ash, starting around midnight so you are off it before the heat. It is also an active volcano, and activity can close it at no notice. Treat it as a separate decision, not a fifth-day extra.

When should we go?

June to October. The ground is dry, the escarpment descent is safe underfoot and the long views are open. In the rains the Empakaai path turns to slick mud and the Rift wall is genuinely unpleasant. February and early March can be good between the rains, and Natron is hot in every month.

How is the camping equipment carried?

On the traverse, usually by donkey, arranged with the Maasai communities the route passes through, and sometimes with a vehicle meeting you where a track allows. You carry a day pack with water, layers and a camera and nothing else. Tell us at the outset if you would rather have a vehicle-supported version, because it changes the route.

Can we do a shorter version?

Yes, and most people should. The Empakaai day hike works as a half day added to a Ngorongoro or Serengeti itinerary and needs no extra nights. There are also two- and three-day versions that take in Olmoti and Empakaai and turn back rather than committing to the drop to Natron.

Can I walk in the Ngorongoro Crater itself?

No — the crater floor is vehicles only, and it will stay that way. The highlands above the rim are a separate matter entirely and are walked with a ranger. A great many visitors never learn that the two things are different, which is why the highlands stay so quiet.

Half a day, or the whole traverse.

Tell us how many days you have and whether you want the Empakaai hike slotted into a normal northern route or the full walk out to Natron. We will tell you honestly which one your trip can carry — and if it is the day hike, that is not a lesser answer.

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ExperienceWalking safariThe briefing, and the other three places worth walking. DestinationNgorongoroThe crater below, and why you drive that one. ExperienceBirdingNatron is the only regular lesser flamingo breeding site in East Africa. HubAll experiencesNine ways to spend a day.