Because I wasn’t able to send photos from the mountain, here’s a photo essay from my attempt of Mt Kenya:
Meeting my 12 porters and guides at the trailhead. The 13th guy on the right is John Githae, the owner of the trekking company. I would see him at high camp, but he wouldn’t be joining us for the trek.A blue monkey at the trailhead. Their niche here seemed to be that of camp robber. To leave your tent door unzipped would be to invite them to steal whatever they could grab.There were a lot of them.My personal dinning tent… far more comfortable than the one we had on Kili. The porters always slept and cooked in the various huts. While the huts were never full and thus they never had to do this, but their plan B for sleeping was to sleep – all 12 of them – in the dinning tent.Starting up in a bamboo forest. That’s my guide Steven.One little incomplete glimpse of the mountain on the hike up.I don’t recall seeing flowers like this on Kilimanjaro.Our first night’s camp, the Mackinder hut (13,800’) is at the head of the valley. The mountain is in the clouds above. Bizarre vegetation. The tall plant is locally called Ostrich Feathers.One of my porters catching up to us. My first impression was damn, those guys were loaded up. I later learned that one of the porters pulled a hamstring low down and had to turn around and thus the other porters split up his load. My 12 was thus reduced to 11. The porters were very strong, and regularly passed me on the trail. I would have kept up with them if not for my oh-so-burdensome 15 pound daypack. With that said, a second porter tweaked something or other on the last day, prompting us to wait a couple of hours for him at the trailhead before driving to Nairobi. They were strong, but they weren’t invincible.It’s not raining yet, but it will be real soon.Arriving at the Mackinder hut 13,800’Rock Hyrax. These critters are about the same size and coloration as North American Marmots, and seem to occupy the same niche, but they are improbably related to elephants.My personal tent (close) and that of some European climbers behind it. The hut itself was dark and damp. I wouldn’t choose to sleep in it although I know that some westerners did.My first view of the mountain as the clouds broke up in the evening.The left hand summit is the true summit (Batian 17,057’). The right hand summit is Nelion (17,021’). My climb would go up the face behind the right hand skyline, over the top of Nelion, down into the col between the two, called the Gate of Mists, and up to Batian. Descent involves reversing the route. Thus, while not technically too hard, it’s a long and complex route. The couloir coming down from the Gate of Mists is the famous Diamond Couloir… Alas, there’s no ice in it these days.Headlamps coming down to our hut after a very long ascent.
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