Mt. Kenya

Only a day after finishing our safari, we headed out on a mountaineering trip to Mt. Kenya. Although we had not done much planning before our trip, the one decision we had spent a considerable amount of time considering was Mt. Kenya vs. Mt. Kilimanjaro. One the one hand, Kili is the tallest mountain in Africa and one of the "seven peaks." On the other hand, it is much more expensive and supposedly littered with hundreds of tourists and the trash they left behind. In the end, we unanamously came to the conclusion that Mt. Kenya was the way to go, each of us for different reasons. Regina was excited about the challenge, apparently Mt. Kenya is much more technically difficult than Kili. Kaitlan was sold on the fact that Mt. Kenya was significantly cheaper and she had no interest in "bagging" one of the seven peaks. What got me was the scenery. We googled photos from both climbs and the photos from Mt. Kenya were so much prettier than the photos of views from Kili.

The first day was a relatively easy hike, but the drive to the park entrance was more problematic. The recent rain had caused the roads leading into the park to be several feet of mud. We were stuck for almost an hour. This ended up resulting in my favorite experience during the hike. While we sat on the side of the road, the three of us were surrounded by the young children that lived in the area. At first they kept their distance, just examining us from a few feet away. Some asked how we were--"How are you?" was uttered to us in English by nearly everyone we passed during our stay in Kenya. Others were bold and asked for sweets. Kaitlan shared her unsweetened peanut butter, which they weren't very thrilled about.

All of the boys and girls had very short hair. In most cases, you could only tell the difference because the girls wore skirts and dresses. Many of them were barefoot and the clothing looked like it had been worn for a long time. After a while, when we got bored of answering to "How are you?" and asking their names, we decided to play games with them. We taught them the hand clapping games that we had learned in grade school and "Down by the Banks". We performed some dances for them like the "sprinkler", "running man," "roger rabbit", etc. They expressed their joy/excitement by screaming/laughing in a very high-pitched manner.

They also performed the cutest rendition of the ABCs we had ever seen. [Video to be added later]


When we finally started hiking, it had started raining again. The path was not too steep or difficult, but the water was running down the mountain on both sides of us. The terrain changed quickly. One minute we were in the dense, rain forest, an hour later we were walking through sparsely vegetated mountainside. The plants were really incredible, though. Like nothing I have ever seen.



We saw no one during our hike to the first shelter on the Sirimon Route, Old Moses, which was named after the first man to summit Mt. Kenya. Unbelieveably, we were able to meet Old Moses, a white man who is now relatively old, on our last day of the hike. He was preparing to climb Mt. Kenya again with his friends.
In the shelter, there were 20 or so other hikers. The shelter were very basic, really only a drafty building with a room for eating and a few rooms for sleeping. There was nothing to heat the shelter, and it was quite cold. After dinner, we convinced our guide, another Jon, to teach us some dances to warm us up. He taught us a funny dance/stretch to a very fun song, "Jambo, Jambo Kenya . . . ." We taught him the hokie pokey. We filled our water bottles with boiling water and tried to stay warm in our poorly constructed, rented sleeping bags. It was a long and restless night.

The next day, it was not raining, but it was still very wet. That may have been because we were basically hiking up a stream bed. At first we tried very hard to keep our shoes dry, but at some point we just gave up and settled on mostly dry. This day was much steeper, and I started to have altitude sickness issues. To be honest, I'm not sure whether the tingling in my hands, feet, and face were a result of the altitude or the medicine that I had taken to prevent altitude sickness, but at one point I was basically staggering up the mountain like a drunk because my feet were not responding to me and my head felt really fuzzy. As beautiful as the landscape was, I'm not sure I really understand the draw of mountaineering, especially in high altitudes. It seems that either the altitude or the medicine to prevent altitude sickness cause you to be miserable and unable to enjoy your hike. And because the medicine also causes extreme sun sensitivity--something my white skin already has--you either hope for a rainy day which is cold and miserable or a sunny day that will fry your skin.

It was so cold at the next shelter, Stilton I think, that we wrapped up in our sleeping bags before dinner and went to bed (with a hot water bottle) as soon as it was over. It was a short night, with some people getting up to summit as early as 12:30 a.m. That morning was miserably cold. Even though the sunrise was beautiful, we were still in the shadow of the mountain and freezing in the snow every step of the way. I was so winded and sick from the altitude, but every time I stopped moving, I immediately started to freeze. I had to rely on the kindness of our porter, Libre, to help push/pull me to the top of the porter's route. What had been a shallow, flowing stream the day before was now a thin layer of icicles that broke in jagged edges as we tromped down the hill. This day, down the Chogoria Route, was supposed to be the prettiest day of the hike. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and most of the views we saw were as outlines through dense fog and rain.







In the afternoon, it cleared up a bit, and we were all happy to make it to the last campsite, Bandas. We stayed in a tent, which was much warmer than any of the other shelters, but still too cold to get a good night's sleep.

The next morning, we started the long, muddy road to the park's gate. We were met halfway by a jeep, which proved to be a very scary/exciting ride. I think some of the rides at Universal Studios must have been modeled after this road.