15/06/2018
I did it again. I climbed another mountain – Mt Kenya, after Kilimanjaro the second highest mountain in Africa. This mountain massive has actually three peaks: Bation and Nelion are the two highest and can only be reached after some serious rock climbing. But Point Lenana is accessible by trekking and a little bit of scrambling.
I headed out with a great support crew of three from Nanyuki.
I decided on the 5 day ascending on Sirimon and descending on Chogoria route. I am very happy with that decision as we trekked through quite diverse scenery: dense rain forests, through bushes and scrubs, alpine desert and farmland. But not just the flora is very rich: when lucky you can spot elephants, antilopes, hyenas, tons of hyraxes and even (snow) leopards up there.
Well, Mt Kilimanjaro might have the fame of being Africa’s highest and one of the 7 summits, but Mt Kenya is definitely the way more beautiful and pretty mountain. And as I still was very well acclimated I could enjoy the scenery to the fullest and I’d go that far and state that Mt Kenya national park is among the top 5 sceneries I have experienced in my life so far.
Even though reaching Lenana point at 4985 m and seeing the sun rising was mind blowing, I had my magical moment when guide Shem and me reached a little saddle while ascending where we switched off our headlamps and suddenly the milky way and billions of stars been visible above us.
