We booked our Mount Kenya climb before leaving home, and Mike was especially excited. Unlike Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya’s highest peak requires real mountaineering skills—technical rock climbing and glacier travel. Not a walk-up. Mike trained hard at the climbing gym, practicing technical routes in boots. Do I rock climb? Sort of… I’m fine with heights, know technique from raising two expert climbers, and can belay—but I feel a lot of pain in cramped rock shoes or boots with my fussy feet, so I mostly avoid it. I’d done a couple of climbs earlier on the trip (including one barefoot ascent to a church in Ethiopia), but nothing close to Mount Kenya’s technical difficulty. So our plan was that we’d climb the third-highest peak (16,355 feet and non-technical), and then Mike would tackle the two technical summits (Nelion: 17,021 feet and Batian: 17,057 feet).
The five days trekking on Mount Kenya were extraordinary. Vast, wild, and largely untouched. Lakes scattered across high valleys. Dramatic peaks everywhere. There were cute rock hyraxes at a couple of the camps. Mike dipped into one of the mountain lakes – he said it was refreshing but I didn’t try. After the chaos of Kilimanjaro—crowds, trash, packed camps, and disappointment—Mount Kenya felt like a revelation. Even better, we were the only clients on our tour. No pacing compromises. No endless waiting.
I worried I wasn’t in Kilimanjaro shape, but once we started hiking, my body came alive. Cool mountain air, stunning scenery—I felt strong and energized immediately. I took Diamox (increases red blood cell count) and had zero altitude issues. Mike skipped it and later admitted that was a mistake. He was fine without Diamox but realized after his grueling climb to the highest peaks, that he really should have been using it too instead of making it that much harder on his body. We met a 62 year old climbing guide from Wyoming who climbed El Capitan four times in his youth who said that as one gets older, Diamox is a wise decision. Mike learned that on his own!
We summited the third-highest peak together easily, delighting our guides, who kept asking how we stayed so fit “at our age.” We had gorgeous weather: crisp, cold mornings and sunshine almost every day.
The next day was Mike’s big push – starting at 4 a.m. I was happy to kiss him goodbye and stay in my nice warm sleeping bag until daylight while he headed out into what turned into our worst weather day—snow flurries, rain, wind, and poor visibility.
My trek that day was fine even in the bad weather, but I started thinking about the poor conditions that Mike was facing. He gets colder more easily than I do and I kept having visions of him belaying the guide and being miserably cold. I kind of wished I had gone with him to make sure he was okay. My guide told me we could get news of Mike’s ascent from camp with their satellite phone. So once we got to camp around 1:30pm I asked for news. That is when I learned that their phone was dead on arrival and they really didn’t have any way to check on Mike and the one guide he was climbing with. Grrrrrrr! Mama Bear wasn’t happy. Remember, we are in Africa without any knowledge of this mountain and hampered by miscommunication or lack of information from the guides. We had asked our guide the day before if when Mike finished we could hike down to a lower camp and all he said was no it wasn’t possible – the higher camp is where the porters would be setting up camp. What he failed to tell us is that Mike’s summit day would go from 4am to at least until 8pm and generally later than that – many previous clients didn’t get back to the high camp until after midnight. So what we thought would be Mike finishing and getting back to camp after about 10 hours of climbing turned out to be after 18 or so hours! Wish we had known that before he left or even that afternoon when I was frantically worried about him.
While I was at camp with nothing to do except explain to the 23 year old guide in charge how they needed to do some things to make sure Mike and his guide would be okay after dark (remember I still didn’t know that it was normal for them to be gone that long), Mike was completely wrapped up in the effort he was facing and only focused on his climbing. I learned later that he wasn’t suffering from the cold, even though there were some snow flurries, and that he wasn’t fretting over the very long time all of this was taking, like I was. He was in a zone and concentrating to the highest degree on the task at hand.
By evening, I insisted porters go up to help Mike and his guide back. Around 10 p.m., headlamps appeared—and there he was, walking under his own power after 18 brutal hours. Exhausted, yes. Broken? Not even close. He made it to the highest peak of Mount Kenya, despite terrifying pitches and tough weather conditions. I was so proud of his accomplishment —and after hearing what it truly required, I knew I’d made the right call staying off the technical route.
The next morning, rested and restored, we hiked six miles down to the trailhead. The 5 days trekking on Mt. Kenya were amazing. It is so lovely and untrampled. Our experience on Mt. Kilimanjaro had been very disappointing due to the amount of people, crowdedness of the campsites and the trails, the trash everywhere and the lack of beautiful scenery along the way. The views of the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and seeing the sunrise from the top was quite special but getting to the summit base camp and back was super disappointing. Mount Kenya gave us everything Kilimanjaro didn’t—and more.
