Mount Kenya

Mt Kenya seen from Naro Moru.

Vertical Bog.

Looping southwards again, we drove back into the mountains in order to climb Mt Kenya. We ground the gears up through cane-brakes and forested valleys until we reached the Naro Moru River Lodge where we could stay the night and hire ice-picks and panchos. It was like an English idyll, with a lovely climate, a bungalow and a trout stream. But we were going up to 14,000 feet on the equator, where there is a permanent glacier. We drove up the winding track to the Meteorological Station and left the bus there. Then we realised what we had let ourselves in for. Ahead of us lay a muddy scramble up the vertical bog, through the clouds to 10,000 feet. The dominant vegetation (apart from mud) was tree heather; used to make "briar" pipes.

At the top of the foggy vertical bog we dropped into the sunlit Teleki Valley which is a surreal place consisting of giant plantains and daisies, set against a jagged alpine backdrop and a deep blue sky. The thin air at this altitude wore us all out.  McKinders Camp lay at the head of the valley, not far below the snow. We had to get water in the evenings because, in the mornings, it was frozen. The frost was severe and we were cold in the tents where we were stacked in bunks. We didn't sleep well because we were cold and it was a noisy place. Mt Kenya Rock Hyraxes scrabbled around the tents at night like ferreting terriers. One of them, that I called Hartley, got his head stuck in a jam tub and blindly butted his way around the site all night. But the real problem was the gang of fundamentalist Israeli Zionists who dominated the camp that night. They were just awful.

Teleki Valley.

As the sun set and the bright moon rose, we could look up at the icy summit and watch a team of proper mountaineers bivouac up for the night on the vertical ice face. Our plan was more modest; to get to the top of the tourist peak at Point Lenana.

If you go there, join an organised group and set off with them in the dark. That way you will be on the top of the glacier when the sun rises and you can get the most fantastic views, all the way south to Kilimanjaro. Once the air warms up, clouds form and the view disappears. High winds can even rip you off the mountain.  We set off late and most of us didn't make it to Point Lenana, even though the weather was kind to us. The problem was altitude; I fell asleep in the snow. I'm sure we would have all made it easily given another day to acclimatise, but our time was up and so down we went.

McKinder's Camp at dawn.

Back in the bog.

We practically bounced our way down the bog and found our bus where we had left it, but at that lower altitude, it had apparently been raining all the time we were up in the sunlight. The track was more of a series of rapids and rolling rocks and we were rafting down it in a minibus with poor brakes that I pumped for all I was worth.  As we approached a horseshoe bend we all grabbed something solid and prayed. I guess most of us had our eyes shut, but straight ahead was a beautiful, misty gorge with waterfalls and forest all round. It seemed to beckon our bus to take a vertical detour and we slid and rattled into the corner with one wheel over the edge. I knew enough to let the brakes go and accellerated round the corner, making the bald tyres bite into the pebbles. And so the little bus jumped back onto the road and delivered us from disaster. I'm not actually sure that everyone on board realised how close we had come to losing it, but I certainly did.

We treated ourselves to a buffet lunch at the luxurious Outspan Hotel before carrying on to Nairobi for the night.

This time we stayed at the New Stanley Hotel which replaced its classic Norfolk-style predecessor that burned down. The hotel's Thorn Tree Cafe upheld the tradition of being a communication hub for those going up-country. You could pin messages to a tree to contact lost comrades or seek a quorum for a budget safari, otherwise it was a pretty ordinary business hotel.
We had an evening out at an Indian restaurant before turning in early in preparation for yet another departure.