The Incredible Shrinking Mountain
It depends on where we look as to what the 'recorded' height of Kilimanjaro is. The sign at the top says 5895 M. hat is 19,340 ft. In 199, with more advanced equipment, the mountain was measured at 5,891.8 meters, or 19,330 ft. In 2008, we now have the following: 5891.8 m - 19330 ft by the Precise Height Measurement Expedition. I swear that is what they called themselves. It is not a Monty Python skit. To make it to the top becomes more humbling as more measurement teams skip up the mountain and find it to be shorter and shorter. Or it is simply shrinking.
One thing we know for sure, the snows are melting thanks to the geology of Kilimanjaro itself, not global warming. Though the volcano is inactive it still has fumaroles that emit gas and molten magma is just 400 metres below the summit crater. I did not know this as I hiked below this, around this, or on top of this. But in the end, Mother Earth is controlling her own snow at the moment, not you or I.