Olmoti Crater

The short walk most itineraries have time for and skip anyway

Olmoti sits at the northern end of the Ngorongoro Crater, up the highland road from the rim. It is the least demanding of the walked craters in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the one that fits into an afternoon, which makes it the obvious thing to add to a crater day and the thing almost every itinerary leaves out.

What is there

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority gives Olmoti as about 6.5 kilometres in diameter with a highest point of approximately 3,080 metres. Unlike the Ngorongoro Crater it is a shallow sunken caldera, grassed over and bisected by a river valley that provides water and grazing through the year. The name comes from the Maasai for a large cooking pot, which is a fair description of the shape.

The set piece is the view from the rim down onto the Munge waterfall, on the Munge river, which drains from here into the Ngorongoro Crater below. That link is worth holding on to: the water in the crater floor’s Munge stream comes off this caldera.

Antelope and eland graze the floor, and the NCAA also notes that Mount Lolmalasin, Tanzania’s third-highest summit, is visible from Olmoti. The walk itself goes up through forest to the rim before the ground opens out.

Timing and conditions

The NCAA gives the walk as approximately thirty to forty minutes up and twenty-five to thirty minutes down on a well-developed trail. It can be done at any time of year, with the authority putting the emphasis on the dry season from June through December.

As everywhere in the conservation area, the walk must be accompanied by an armed ranger and arranged in advance. Olmoti is also a stage on the longer walking route through Empakaai and on towards Lake Natron — see mountain trekking and day hiking.

Whether it is worth the detour

Honestly: it depends on what the day already contains. Olmoti is a modest walk to a modest waterfall viewpoint in beautiful high country, and it will disappoint anyone expecting a second Ngorongoro Crater. What it offers is the only easy chance most visitors get to be out of a vehicle in the Ngorongoro highlands, in cool air, at altitude, with the plains a long way below. For a trip that is otherwise entirely conducted through a roof hatch, that is not a small thing.

It is also a considerably better use of an afternoon than a second descent into the main crater, and it costs an hour and a half of walking.

Common questions