So
that was the most epic mountain I've ever climbed, and that was after doing
Ruwenzori. I realize I owe you a Ruwenzori blog, but we're talking about
Mt. Kenya first. Both of these mountains turned a little more epic than
we'd originally planned, but Mt. Kenya has the higher good epic/bad epic ratio
of the two. Before getting to the mountain, I knew that there would be a
significant amount of technical climbing required to reach the top, but the
mountain itself is deceptive.
Mt.
Kenya is about a three-hour drive from Nairobi along good highways, which makes
it one of the easier of the Five to reach. When you are about 45 minutes
from the trailhead, you can see the mountain on the horizon. It's huge,
but it slopes gently, very gently, over an enormous footprint. When the
clouds shroud the summit, and they do on most afternoons, all you can see is
what looks like a giant, mild shield volcano on the horizon. However,
when the clouds part, you finally see the angry spike of rock that holds Mt.
Kenya's summit sticking out of the center of the mountain. From a
distance, it looks small when compared with the rest of the massif, which
sprawls alone across the low and flat savannah. Throughout all of the
first day of the hike, you can barely see the tip of the peak peeking (giggle)
over the foothills. It takes until the very end of the second day to
finally get to behold the summit crag in all of its intimidating
grandeur. It was cloudy when we reached the second camp, but a few hours
later, when the clouds parted, suddenly I got a sense of how difficult the
climb itself would be.
The
trail that we walked over the first two days was very easy--Class 1 all the
way. Its only challenge is that it brings hikers to a very high elevation
(close to 14,000') in a very short time, so many people get altitude sickness
on the mountain; more so than on the other mountains of the Five. I had
an advantage in that I had been on Ruwenzori only five days before, so I was
already reasonably well acclimated to the height. I still felt the
altitude a little, but a few members of the other teams felt pretty ill.
A couple teams actually decided to spend an extra day at the second camp before
pushing on to the high camp and whichever peak on the mountain they were doing.
When
the afternoon rains finally went away, the central spire of the mountain comes
into full view and looms over the camp. We approached the summit along
the Sirimon route, which comes from the west, so the summit looked even more
serious than it does from other directions. The western side of the
mountain is the side that gets the rainfall, so the face of the summit spire
that... faces the second camp is filled with snow, ice, and rotten
couloirs. Thankfully, on the third day, we hiked around to the back side
of the spire, giving us access to the dry side of the mountain. This side
receives relatively little snow and rainfall, so the rock faces leading to the
summit are mostly clean and dry. Otherwise, the entire climb would've
been an uncomfortable and very difficult mixed climb with loose snow and ice,
which is pretty unsafe.
As
all roads lead to Rome, all Mt. Kenya trails lead to the same high camp, the
Austrian Hut. Whatever peak a team is doing, they all sleep in the same
hut the night before their summit bid. Oh right, did I mention that all
popular African peaks have huts on
them? Not campsites, but actual buildings with bunk beds (with foam
mattresses!) and roofs. The mountains might be difficult, but sleeping
isn't. Usually, the higher you go, the more spartan the shelters
become. High camp on Ruwenzori is a low-roofed shack that people pack
into like sardines to sleep for a few hours before starting their summit
bid. The Austrian Hut was the most comfortable of all the huts I've
stayed in so far. Warm, no drafts, thick and new foam mattresses.
It was cozy, which isn't a word you'd normally associate with a high
camp. Windswept, frozen insomnia is a little closer to the normal
feeling.
All
parties converge at this location because it is right in the heart of the
mountain and provides easy access to all of Mt. Kenya's most prominent
peaks. The classic image of a mountain is basically a pyramid with a
single, lonely peak. However, most mountains have a few prominent points
on them that are not separate enough to be considered distinct mountains.
Mt. Kenya has at least a dozen, most of which are technical. Because the
summit of the mountain is so technically challenging, many people hike up to
Point Lenana, the third-highest peak on the mountain. Pt. Lenana is
easily walkable from the Austrian Hut, and many teams that have come to the
mountain just to reach Pt. Lenana actually hike directly to it from the second
camp. It's no easy feat, since it's still well over 16,000' tall and requires
fairly difficult acclimation to reach. Most of the groups that I
encountered on the mountain had come to Mt. Kenya just to reach this peak.
We
finished our hike to the Austrian Hut very early on our third day, so the guide
and I decided to hike it that afternoon to help ourselves to acclimate for the
summit bid the following day. Shortly after we arrived at the Austrian
Hut and got unpacked, the winds picked up and clouds blew in. While we
were making our plans, it started snowing. The guide, John, was concerned
that I would not feel safe or comfortable trekking through the snow, but I told
him that I'd spent most of the past few years of my life living and adventuring
in the northern US and Canada. He laughed, said OK, and off we went.
It took less than an hour to reach Pt. Lenana from high camp, so we enjoyed the
summit for a little while before turning around. The steep parks of this
hike have been maintained with slick conditions in mind. A cable handrail
has been bolted to the rock face you walk alongside for much of the way, and
handles made with rebar have been installed into the short rock face that you
would otherwise have to climb.
After that, we went back to camp to eat and get ready for the climb the following day.
--Jeremy
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