Apologies everyone for the long hiatus. I had somewhat of a writers block concerning this blog, but a recent trip to Mount Kenya has re-invigorated my desire for blogification. Rest assured I have many other blog posts percolating in my head, and hopefully will actually follow through on them this time.
Meanwhile, let me tell you a tale of climbing the 2nd highest mountain on the continent of Africa. Mount Kenya has 3 peaks, with Point Lenana being the one you can actually get to by walking. (The other two require technical climbing experience, which was deemed out of scope for this particular adventure). At 4,985 meters above sea level, I was setting out to climb to the highest elevation of my life.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention offers the following cogent advice on avoiding altitude sickness:
“Avoid going directly from low altitude to more than 9,000 ft (2,750 m) sleeping altitude in 1 day. Once above 9,000 ft (2,750 m), move sleeping altitude no higher than 1,600 ft (500 m) per day, and plan an extra day for acclimatization every 3,300 ft (1,000 m). Participate in only mild exercise for the first 48 hours.”
Our plan of attack was to leave from the Naro Maru gate of Mt Kenya, located at 2,500m above sea level, and walk to the top of Point Lenana, located at 4,985m above sea level, in just 41 hours. Not exactly following doctor’s orders on that one. I think we were all feeling pretty nervous the night before, as we gathered in a friend’s house in Nanyuki.
8 friends from North America. Split evenly by gender, home base (Nairobi Vs Nanyuki) and the 49th parallel. Would we all make it to the top? Would any of us succumb to altitude sickness? Would the Canadians rat out the Americans putting Canadian flags onto their bags? Just as the tension stretched to the breaking point, our nerves were calmed by an unlikely source; Sir David Attenborough. It turns out that the second season of Planet Earth has an episode on Mountains, and there are two minutes and forty-two glorious seconds dedicated to none other than Mount Kenya. Here it is, in all it’s splendour:
If nothing else, you need to listen to the first 10 seconds, which has Sir Attenborough proclaim in his immediately recognizable voice, “snow… on the equator.” This led to much hilarity on our hike, including moments like this:
And like this:
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Perhaps it’s my geospatial background, but I find there’s something magical about the casual way one crosses the equator in Kenya. Team Nairobi drove up to Nanyuki on Thursday night. We stayed at Kate and Allie’s house, and wandered 225m down the road for dinner at a local restaurant they frequent, passing from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere for a plate of noodles and some butter chicken.
A "graphic" depicting our Thursday night journey to dinner
Our hike started at 12:30 PM Friday afternoon from the Naro Moru gate of Mt Kenya National Park. Whilst there are several routes to get up to the top of the mountain, only Naro Moru allows silly and ill-advised travellers such as ourselves to attempt a 3-day ascent/descent. So, full of ideals and excitement, we set out on our epic journey… and promptly stopped for lunch 200 m up the road. Despite the lazy start, night one saw us at around 3000 meters, staying in a cabin comfy enough that we even got a real fire! The next morning, we set off for our first real challenge, although first Kate tried to poison all of us by not reading the instructions on her SteriPEN. (Note: they work better if you actually take the cap off the bulb area…)
One of the amazing things about climbing a high mountain is that the changes in elevation brings you into different climactic zones, and therefore you are treated to stark differences in vegetation and scenery. We started our climb through a tropical rainforest, but after a few hours entered a section called the “Vertical Bog”, which is exactly how it sounds. If you watched through the full Planet Earth clip above, you’ll notice that they spend a lot of time talking about the vegetation on Mt Kenya which closes up to protect itself at night. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about seeing a plant. It was like meeting a celebrity.
FAMOUS PLANTS!
Our journey upwards continued, deeper into the vertical bog. We stopped for lunch after a sighting of the rare Alpaca Bush.
The bog finally ends, dumping us into a beautiful valley, with our first glimpse of the mountain peaks in the distance. The weather continues to change dramatically as we ascend, vacillating from intense heat, to a hard rain, to chunks of hail, and back. Coming from the drought of Nairobi, with no rain for months, the intense precipitation comes as a bit of a surprise, despite being warned many times that we would need rain pants.
Mid-afternoon, and we arrive at our final night’s lodgings at 4000m above sea level. The clouds part, the rain abates, and that magical hour of perfect sunlight illuminates the peaks around us. Soon enough darkness falls, and with it the temperature. We bundle up in our sleeping bags and eat some dinner, then go to sleep as soon as possible. 2am would come up on us awfully quick.
Some pictures we took at our 4000m stop before night fell
By 3am we are all outside, draped in every layer we brought with us. The sub-zero temperature feels all that much colder due to our equatorial surroundings. The hike starts pleasantly enough, the full splendour of the night sky wheeling above us, with only the cut-out darkness of Mt. Kenya’s peaks to block the starlight shining down. Soon enough, the trail starts to become more steep, more treacherous. We only have about 5km of distance to hike before sunrise, but almost a full kilometer straight up in that same amount of time. The following three hours prove to be one of the hardest things I have ever done mentally or physically. As we get higher, the oxygen becomes less, while the unobstructed wind tears down the mountain, dropping the temperature still further. My life narrows to a series of steps, then a pause to suck down a lungful of air, then repeat. Our guides had cleverly avoided answering questions earlier that afternoon concerning our final route. The reasoning now becomes clear, as we are able to convince ourselves that it couldn’t possibly be too much further, in the absence of any evidence one way or another.
Finally, we get to the cabin at the bottom of the final climb for one last 10-minute break. The hard part is over. The dawn is almost upon us, and we can put our headlamps away. The last 400 vertical meters is more technical climbing, with large snowy boulders to climb using cables pounded into the rocks. The combination of the end being in sight, and the more engaging route means that a last gasp of energy floods into our bodies, and we rush to the top. At 4,985 meters above sea level we finally stop to take in the view. Totally, undeniably, worth it.
After some time taking our hero shots at the top of the mountain, it’s time to start the long climb back to the bottom. At least at the beginning, going down seems effortless compared to the slog of getting up. Without my lungs feeling like they will explode any second, I finally get to enjoy my only chance at walking in snow that I’ll get in 2017. We make it back the cabin we slept in by 930 am, marvelling that somehow, we had covered 2 km of vertical distance before breakfast.
Ryan, marveling.
Our guides, knowing how much energy we’d expanded, feed us the loveliest and most calorie-heavy breakfast of the trip so far. We bask in the sun for a little while, feeling the contentment that comes of a physical challenge met. Our interlude is necessarily brief, as we still had 22 more kilometers to walk that day.
The trip down was lovely, filled with easy conversation bereft of the gasping for breath that characterized our verbal interactions on the way up. Despite the exhaustion of having walked 3.5 vertical kilometers (1 up, 2.5 down) and 32 horizontal kilometers since 3am that morning, we decided to make an attempt at getting back to Nairobi and clean underwear that same night. With me driving, Ryan, Mel and Ben all stayed awake to keep me from hitting a tree due to exhaustion. This involved a lot of singing loudly (note: the Spotify playlist “songs to sing in the shower” is good for this) and swearing loudly at trucks as we passed them. Some hours later, we had safely returned to the city of noise and smog, reeling with the idea that we had been on the top of the world that very morning.
I think it’s safe to say that despite making out with giraffes and other adventures, climbing Mt Kenya has been the highlight of time in East Africa so far. Kilimanjaro gets all the love, but Mt Kenya has almost no one else on it, and is easily 1/5 the price. For anyone spending some time in the country, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Also, our guides were EXCELLENT so please let me know if you want their contact info.
Hopefully you have enjoyed this return to Uncharted Spaces after my long hiatus. I hope to be more dutiful with posts in the future. Many of you might be wondering how I’ve been getting around the country in my time here so far. Stay tuned for next post, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, tentatively titled, "The Life and Times of The Beast".
Until then, stay safe and so will I.
