Mount Kenya Charity Climb

Arrive in Kenya in the morning where you’ll be collected from Nairobi airport for the 3-4 hour transfer to Naro Moru on the lower slopes of the western side of Mount Kenya. If your flight is arriving in the late afternoon / evening then better to arrive on the previous day and spend one night in Nairobi. There is plenty to see and do in Nairobi where we can also help to arrange extra nights accommodation and / or city tours, we’re more than happy to discuss all options to ensure your time in Kenya is everything and more than you expected.

Full day to visit Moving Mountains projects in the area, including the Secondary School built on the grounds of Tigithi Primary School and our community development projects in the Solio villages, and for those interested we can trek up to some of the Mau Mau caves where freedom fighters hid during their fight for independence – second night at Blueline Hotel. You’ll meet many of the mountain guides, cooks and porters during this day as most of them live in the area and their children attend Tigithi Primary and Secondary School. In the evening we’ll discuss the mountain and look at the route, kit and have a briefing for the following day.

Today all the guides and porters will meet us at the Blueline Hotel and we will load up the vehicle(s) for the short 15km drive up to the Naro Moru gate of Mount Kenya National Park. There are often baboons and bushbuck wandering around the area as we sign in and then we head off along the vehicle track through the forests of bamboo and hardwood trees. We will stop for a picnic lunch at a convenient spot before continuing on up to our first camp at Met Station, located close to the edge of the forest where buffalo often come out overnight to graze.

From Met Station we follow the vehicle track a bit further before turning off on a footpath through the Hygenia forest and then out onto the more open heathland. From here you get a fantastic view back over the treetops and down to the plains beyond. The heath and moorland continues and also sports Giant Cabbage Groundsel and Giant Lobelia Deckenii as we make our way up past the over-dramatically named ‘Vertical Bog’ to the outcrop known as picnic rocks, for lunch. From lunch we continue on the moorland for a bit longer before joining the edge of the Teleki Valley and winding between Giant Tree Groundsel and Ostrich Plume Lobelia and then onto grasses in the valley floor as we cross a river and follow it on a gentle approach to our next camp at MacKinders Hut, on an outcrop of moraine.

Today we will take a day-walk from MacKinders Hut to aid our acclimitisation. There are a few possibilities and we are most likely to walk up to a pair of small lakes called Hut Tarn and Nanyuki Tarn and collectively known as two-tarn! From here we get a great view straight across at the south west face of the main summits and the glaciers that hang from it. It is also possible to walk up to the foot of two of these glaciers, the Darwin and the Tyndall, but it is a slightly more difficult route. We will be back at MacKinders for lunch and for an afternoon of relaxing and final preparations for our early morning start to summit Point Lenana for sunrise.

Today we will be up soon after midnight to start our ascent to Point Lenana. After a short flat section we are onto the frozen screes by torchlight and climbing up and up to reach Austrian Hut at 4790m. At the hut we will take a break, the duration of which will be decided by our speed so far, the idea being that we arrive at Point Lenana just before sunrise and don’t have to wait in the cold. From Austrian Hut we follow a ridge all the way to the summit, the ridge is initially quite broad but it does get narrower and we will take our time over the short sections that need hands as well as feet. There are steel cables on the upper two thirds of the route and though they are not really necessary, they can be reassuring. The sun will rise around 6am and we will drink in its warmth as well as the spectacular view (on a clear day you can see Kilimanjaro in the distance) before dropping down by either re-tracing our ascent route or alternatively traversing right over and down the north side before turning to the east and down to Hall Tarns for breakfast. After enjoying the amazing views of the cliffs of the Temple and Lake Michaelson we will set off further down the mountain to camp at Lake Ellis or Nithi Falls.

After trekking to Nithi Falls we continue down to Meru bandas (cabins) where we’ll meet up with our 4×4’s for the drive back down through the forest to Chogoria town before continuing on to the town of Embu where you’ll meet up with any kit that you didn’t take on the mountain (we’ll have transferred it around the mountain and it will be in a secure room in our Embu Guest House). Check in to our rooms at the Isaak Walton Hotel in Embu and enjoy some much deserved R&R in the peaceful gardens of the hotel.

Aside from our own Moving Mountains projects (including the Rescue Centre for Street Children, a number of rural and urban Primary Schools, various social enterprises and our Black Cats sports, dance and music clubs, Embu offers a safe and lively nightlife, a number of outdoor swimming pools and some great walks and other activities in the surrounding hills.

Other options include tailor made safari’s, climbs on Kilimanjaro, visits to other Moving Mountains projects and Game Reserves around Mount Kenya or transfers back to Nairobi for city tours.