Climbing Mt Kenya

Mount Kenya

Far from being a just single peak Mount Kenya is in fact a massif (a compact group of mountains) consisting of a multitude of imposing spires, cliffs, complex ridges and peaks. These are the weathered remnants of a large extinct volcano that was active several million years ago. Mount Kenya straddles the equator but is sufficiently high to receive significant snowfall and to be circled with several glaciers. The main summits are the twins Batian and Nelion, and these can only be reached by means of technical climbing via a variety of vertical rock routes. Lenana, often referred to as Point Lenana, is a side peak of Mt Kenya. It is the third highest summit in the massif, and is the usual site of those who climb Mt. Kenya. The hike starts from the agricultural lowlands, goes through dense semi-tropical rain forests and arrives at rugged grass lands, high altitude meadows and finally traverses rocky surroundings with glaciers and snow. Our drive there started with a few mangoes and pineapples….

After a long drive, we met our guide and porters and loaded up.

Poor Paul was stuck in the way way back surrounded by gear :)

As we arrived at the park entrance, Philip's truck broke down. Something about coolant and a hose…. they rigged it up so Paul could drive the truck back, but it meant we had a late start.

But other teams were also getting ready to go, so we weren't TOO late.

The first section was on a very dusty road through the jungle up to camp Moses, where the alpine vegetation started.

After hiking up for 4 hours we arrived at Camp Moses at 7 PM to tea, biscuits and popcorn. Dinner preparations didn't start until we arrived, so dinner was after 8pm---wine in a box, pasta with NOTHING on it, Rochelle's leftover rolls--despite fact we asked for Chapati every night--veggies, grated cheese and leftover greek salad (that's right Nadia!). As we glanced over to the other group's table settings, it appeared that Philip was right, it was good we brought and organized the food! Otherwise Rochelle would have starved. We had planned to make the chicken the first night, but it was still frozen solid. We were all tired an promptly went to bed.

The rooms were composed bunk-beds, and luckily the first night we had a room to ourselves. (PLEASE NOTE: Yes, the hat is pretty bad. BUT Rochelle lost hers on one of our preparation hikes, so she had to borrow one from Philip. Claire made sure to cover it up later with a bandana.)

This is what Camp Moses looked like on the outside--- nice, huh? Yup, those are motorcycles, since you can drive up to this point.

The next morning we had a typical breakfast of fruit, cereal, pancakes and eggs--- if desired. We started hiking around 8 AM. Most of hike wasn't really steep, but LONG and tiring, especially since we slept very few hours that first night (camp was loud and there were people snoring! We could hear everything through the slatted walls). We hiked for about 11 hours that day.

The vegetation and scenery on the way up was BEAUTIFUL.

We took lots of breaks, and went pole-pole (swahili for slow). None of us felt sick from the altitude. 

We arrived at the second camp (Shipton) again at 7 PM to waiting tea and popcorn.

Since we had a few miscommunications about the food, Rochelle directed the chef on how to make chicken curry. She loved it-- and the curry turned out really well. With us only traveling polepole and a late dinner, we went to bed rather late. This time, we were in a room with about 20 people, and one of them was REALLY sick from the altitude.

 

We had to rise at 2:20 AM to get ready for PROMPT 3 AM departure after a snack of coffee or tea and biscuits. We hiked in the dark, under a beautiful starry night, up scree, next to cliffs, scrambling over rocks, slipping on gravel, barely able to breathe due to altitude, cold, wondering why we are paying so much for this opportunity. With perseverance, we made it to the summit for a ?6:30 AM sunrise. 

 

 

 We watched the sunrise and grew colder, so we didn't stay at the top for very long. We blame the lack of oxygen and exhaustion for not taking a photo with a can of Tab at the top... or very many photos at all! 

 Then began long trek down, down, down, up, down, down, up, down.... Basically covering the previous 2 days and summit worth of hiking, though we were taking a different route (yay!). 

Near the bottom, with camp supposedly 1 hour away.... we saw 2 elephants on the road ahead of us.  Sammy, our guide, went ahead to check things out. He came back wide-eyed and told us that one almost charged him. We had to find another route to camp. The route we found was an elephant trail (genius?) which went down through jungle into swamp. In the swamp, we had to jump from grass clump to grass clump trying to avoid stepping in mud, elephant footprint holes, elephant dung, etc. We weren't sure where the energy came from to do that, but trusting our guide, we hurried, nearly running, on.  





We finally made it to camp at 7 PM, completely worn out.  At least this camp had somewhat warm showers and a fireplace! Rochelle directed dinner makings of bean soup with bacon, leftover veggies, more Chapati and cheese and onions.  We fell into bed exhausted at 10 PM.

The next morning we arose around 7:15 (Claire not until after 8), sat in the sun some drinking tea, had leisurely breakfast of pancakes, eggs, oatmeal and fruit.....then started a "short" hike to vehicle around 11.

Unfortunately said vehicle broke down AGAIN and a short hike turned into 2 hour hike, then 2 hour wait in bamboo next to elephant dung (only shade available) while a broken hose was jerry rigged (different hose apparently from the one at the start of the trip).

We proceeded to drive down to small town, hoping to find a part, with Claire packed with the guys in the back like it was a Matatu.

On the way, we saw some weaver birds feeding their babies!

The road was rather dusty....

We made it to the town and said our goodbyes to our team.

We were dropped off at hotel, so Paul (drove truck to pick us up) and Philip could depart to find the part.  Claire and Rochelle wandered the town getting looks up and down from everyone, especially after we bought dresses and wore them because all of our clothes were FILTHY!

The guys finally arrived back around 5 PM, after quick snack we again departed as the day was growing into dusk. We drove by small towns and rolling hills, but Philip then realized that his headlights wouldn't come on... so we quickly stopped again for some jerry rigging and bypass a blown fuse.  We left again-- it was now fully dark, and as we were going up steep hill, we heard a loud "SHHHEEEWWW"---- another hose blew-- and it was the same one that blew the first day of the trip.  This was the first time we saw Philip looking pretty frustrated.  We stopped, and he discovered they had replaced it with the wrong hose type.  Another hour while tinkering, another jerry rig occurred, followed by a slow drive back to the town we started from, but this time we rented rooms in the hotel. At least the rooms were only $12 per night!-- so Claire and Rochelle got our own rooms while Philip and Paul shared.

After we cleaned up we headed out to eat.  By now it was 9 PM!  Went to a bar/tavern/club.  We walked in the door to see a rooster in cage next to door, looking rather forlorn. Paul headed to the back to pick out a live chicken for dinner.  (!!!pick out chicken for dinner at 9 PM!!!that needs to be killed, plucked and cooked!!!! Who knows when we would eat!!!)

We then proceeded to drink wine (Claire and Rochelle already had a bit at the hotel) and dance like crazy!  We could've danced all night if we didn't refuse.  The Africans, regardless of sex, LOVED dancing with the mzungu (slang in Swahili for white people).  We finalllly ate dinner at 11 PM, and scarfed it down, danced more more song, and planned to leave. We were asked by manager (who was actually extremely rude to us most of the night) to dance ONE MORE song (apparently we were good for business)--- but declined, drove home and collapsed into bed.  We have to say it was really fun and way more worth repeating then the mountain climb! ;)