Mount Kenya

Mount Kenya – Hakuna Matata

Mount Kenya – who cannot have wanted to see for themselves the diamond glacier and the evocatively named gate of the mists described in Eric Shipton’s famous book Upon That Mountain, or make a pilgrimage to the site of Felice Benuzzi’s wartime escapades in No Picnic on Mount Kenya. Quite a few years ago I got talking to a fellow caver in a pub and we discovered we had mountaineering interests in common as well as caving: Sean Kelly has a simple approach to these things: "Let’s jump on a plane to Nairobi and go climb the bugger!" was his suggestion.

Mount Kenya at over 17,000 ft is the second highest mountain in Africa after Kilimanjaro. It lies literally within a few miles of the Equator. The twin summits, Batian (17,054 ft / 5199m) and Nelion (17,022 ft / 5188m), are separated by a cleft – the gate of the mists. The third highest point is Point Lenana (16,355 ft / 4985m). Point Lenana can be climbed by fit and acclimatised hikers, but either of the main peaks requires technical rock climbing at altitude: the easiest way is a route on Nelion of about 1300 ft of climbing with pitches allegedly up to Hard V Diff or Severe standard.

Batian was first climbed by a party led by a gentleman explorer, Halford Mackinder, in 1899. Nelion did not fall underfoot, nor was Batian re-ascended, until 1929 when Eric Shipton started his explorations of the mountain. Shipton is a particular hero of mine, his maxim ‘travel light, travel far’, and the idea that the only expeditions worth going on are ones that can be planned on the back of an envelope with a few hours notice, are both appealing ideals (unfortunately, the idea of planning the 1953 Everest expedition on the back of even a large envelope probably cost him his chance to lead it).

In February this year we followed in Shipton’s footsteps as Sean suggested, and got on a plane to Nairobi with a sackful of climbing gear, half a plan on a scrap of paper, and no real idea exactly how we were going to make it all work. Sean revealed he had a combined edition of W. E. Bowman’s The Ascent of Rum Doodle and The Cruise of the Talking Fish to use as an expedition manual. Suddenly everything was going to be all right.

We stepped out of the airport and immediately into the clutches of one of a score of Safari pundits. "How much is a taxi to Mount Kenya?" we asked. More dollars than you could possibly part with was the answer, but for 1000 KSh (about £10) we will take you to our offices in Nairobi and see if we can make a plan to fit your budgets. We walked into the trap. "We want to climb Mount Kenya." "Hakuna matata – no problem. You will need porters, a cook and a climbing guide." "We have brought our own food and we know how to climb, we only need porters." "You will get lost on the mountain and we will have to rescue you…" Eventually a deal was struck, which somehow managed to relieve us of nearly all our cash. If we give all our cash to a Safari company we thought logically, we can’t be robbed of it (again). Fortunately for us though, meeting up with this crowd (Sanu Expeditions Ltd) was a piece of incredible luck. Not only was it a relatively new Safari company and therefore very keen to make a good impression on travellers so that they will spread the word back home, it was one with a good knowledge of Mount Kenya and excellent contacts among local porters.

So it was that we found ourselves camping that night at the first camp site on the Naro Moru hiking trail up Mount Kenya, after landing in Nairobi that morning. We had three porters – Stephen Kamande Mburu, James Babu and Joseph Njuru. Stephen would stay with us all the time whereas James and Joseph would go back down when we had established ourselves on the mountain. Apart from being chased down the track in the dark by a rogue water buffalo, everything was going according to plan. We had the first of our evening meals. In the Cruise of the Talking Fish one character proposes living off putty and sawdust for the duration of the voyage. Sean hadn’t quite gone this far and had compromised with a diet of reconstituted soya protein. For breakfast next morning I got my revenge by revealing ten days worth of plain Ready Brek in a large plastic bag.

As we walked up the trail to Mackinder’s camp at the foot of the main summits, we used Rum Doodle to identify the many new plants and animals. Behind every rock was a lurking suspicion, we spotted several examples of the hairy disgrace, and almost certainly made a sighting of the highly elusive East African warple.

Mackinder’s camp consists of a large bunkhouse and camping area at 14,000 ft at the head of a valley directly below the main peaks. Sean, who knows about these things, suggested we should spend two nights here to acclimatise. I was too much out of breath to disagree. The next day therefore we hauled most of our gear up to a hut known as the Austrian hut or top hut, jumping off point for Point Lenana, and for climbs on the South face of Nelion including the route we hoped to do. On the way back down we scrambled onto a ridge terminating in a beautiful but little visited point known as Shipton’s peak, directly above the head of the Teleki valley and Mackinder’s camp.

The following morning we packed up completely and moved everything up to the new campsite next to the Austrian hut. In the afternoon we wandered up Point Lenana. From the Austrian hut the bottom half of the route up the South East face of Nelion looked impossible. From Point Lenana the top half looked even meaner. I was beginning to have secret doubts whether we would even get off the ground.

Next day therefore, another acclimatisation day, found us crossing the Lewis glacier and up some very loose moraine below the SE face to have a closer look at the start of the route. The first two pitches were scrambling, then the true nature of the face was revealed. Very steep rock for sure but crucially the grain was lying into the face. This meant any steep pitches would hopefully be interspersed with good ledges. The way on was obvious too – a rising traverse brought you to the foot of an 80 ft chimney that could only be Mackinder’s chimney, described by Shipton as the key that unlocks access to the upper reaches of the mountain. Reassured, we dropped off a pile of kit here.

On returning from our prospecting we found the Austrian camp had been invaded by a commercial outfit, "OTT Expeditions", complete with "OTT" baseball caps. We decided OTT referred to the amount of gear they had insisted on bringing with them. "Hello, what are your climbing plans?" we asked, fearful of a cast of thousands on the route up Nelion. "We’ve come to climb Kilimanjaro." "Aren’t you on the wrong mountain mate? This is Mount Kenya." (needless to say this didn’t go down very well). "We’re climbing Mount Kenya to acclimatise for Kilimanjaro…" they patiently explained.

Our plan for the next day was to climb Nelion, spend the night in the well-appointed Howell hut on the summit, cross the gate of the mists to Batian the following morning, then return to Nelion to follow a rappel route back down the South East face. We got away at 6.30am but were delayed whilst a guided party of four threw stones from Mackinder’s chimney onto the first pitch. Once they were out of the way though we were soon roping up at the start of the rising traverse reached the previous day. The traverse went smoothly in two halves until we found ourselves looking up Mackinder’s chimney to the remains of a 100 year old rope, left over from the first ascent. The modern route continues around a corner which left us both impressed by the standard of the climbing. A struggle past a strenous roof followed. Eventually we found ourselves on a comfortable scree ledge essentially at the top of Mackinder’s chimney. We were on our way! We made rapid progress up several pitches on easier ground until we arrived at a curiously placed tin shelter just below the South East ridge: Bailey’s bivvy is either ‘not recommended’ in the climbing guide, or marked as ‘ruined’ on the map. From the look of the place we agreed: what idiots would want to stay there? Us it would shortly turn out.

On the ridge we noticed copious amounts of cloud had built up unusually early in the day to the South West. A rumble of thunder floated across to us. As yet undeterred we traversed under a large pinnacle known as Mackinder’s gendarme on a series of icy ledges and turned up towards the nick between the pinnacle and face. More thunder and the clouds were now surrounding us. After thrashing about on a steep corner we fell back to consider our position. We certainly didn’t want to get caught in a thunderstorm on the exposed ridge above, neither did we want to withdraw to the base of the climb – we wouldn’t have time for another attempt. A closer investigation of Bailey’s bivvy was called for.

The bivvy was a ledge with a roof and outer wall of tin sheeting anchored to the rock, and an entrance opening sensationally over the SE face. Once inside, there was crouching room and enough space for one person to lie down. It started to snow and we resigned ourselves to our fate. The guided party, looking cold and miserable, abseiled past shortly after. Listening as the snow turned to hail clattering on the roof, time passed slowly: "What on earth are we doing in a hailstorm at 16,500 ft in half a tin shed bolted to a cliff face. It's times like these I wish I’d listened to what my mother told me…" "What did your mother tell you." "I don’t know, I didn’t listen." One thing was sure, if we were going to survive a whole night there we had better improve our stock of jokes.

After a pretty rough twelve hours, we looked out next morning across a sea of clouds to an angry red dawn. Fortunately the sun climbs rapidly at these latitudes, soon warming the air. We stiffly sorted ourselves out and hatched a new plan: dump as much kit as we dare in one rucksack and continue upwards ‘climbing light’ with the other. Our high point of the previous day was duly reached and the awkward corners overcome. The next pitch was supposed to be the crux of the whole climb and I found myself nervously at the sharp end. But it was perfect climbing: good friction, excellent protection, warm rock, fresh air – in fact several thousand foot of fresh air was beneath my feet. After about 70 ft I landed on a comfortable ledge and brought Sean up. Above us the ‘ridge’ continued extremely steeply to a blank wall of red rock. A precarious traverse suspended over another awesome abyss followed. Finally we could relax a little as the route climbed into a gully and up to a spacious ledge of white scree. A short chimney then two pitches of easy ground and we were on the top!

By this point we had been caught up by an American "Big Wall" man leading one of the OTT clients, and travelling very fast. "Tha chim wasn as dffclt as sposed be" he said. No we didn’t think the chimney was that hard either we replied, making a best guess at a translation. We took the necessary photographs, ate the necessary snack bars. The cloud parted briefly to reveal the East ridge of Batian mocking us from across the gate of the mists. Hmmm…Yorkshire lads 1 : Mt Kenya 1, we reckoned

A recently placed series of stainless steel anchors have taken over as the standard rappel route off Nelion, which we now followed. One of the drops was spectacularly free-hanging down the blank wall we encountered on the way up. We picked up our bivvy kit, then followed a seemingly endless series of 25m rappels down the SE face. At the bottom, even if we hadn’t bagged Batian, we were still joyous at climbing such a superb mountaineering route…and maybe not a little relieved to be off the great cliff at last.

After a pleasant night (relatively speaking) in the tent, a cold wind forced us to pack up rapidly. Stephen suggested we walk out the Sirimon trail which was his favourite route. "Hakuna matata. Let’s go", not realising we’d just let ourselves in for a twenty mile hike with heavy packs. This route goes around the North side of the mountain, which in February is in its winter condition. Then down a beautiful alpine valley, with sunbirds dancing amongst giant groundsel trees, and the twin peaks of Mount Kenya high above.

Much, much later we staggered into the Sirimon park gate, just in time to catch a lift into the town of Nanyuki where Stephen pointed us in the direction of a cheap but clean hotel. That evening we couldn’t find soya on the menu of the hotel restaurant, so we made do with steak and chips instead.

Reprinted from CPC Record 54, 8-11 (April 1999).

Copyright © (1999) Patrick B Warren and Craven Pothole Club Ltd.