What it's like climbing a mountain
First. Don't underestimate this mountain. Mt. Kenya is big and the whole
exercise is HARD WORK!! Probably harder exercise than anything you've done
since you left school or were in one of the services. You will almost certainly
be cold at times. Worse, you may get soaking wet in rain or sleet. At the higher
altitudes, (+4,000m.), 50% of your group will suffer a headache. Some may well feel
sick / vomit. You will discover muscles you didn't know you even had, and at times you
will consider yourself a prime candidate for the lunatic asylum. But don't worry, this
is quite normal on such a mountain. Console yourself with the thought that most of the
others with you are feeling the same way, and often worse, and that it can't go on forever.
If you're still interested in climbing, below is a brief synopsis of how an average walker
might expect to feel while ascending the mountain, though it is of course impossible to predict,
how you the reader will feel and react.
Park gate (or about 2,000m) to roadhead. The first hour or so's walk is a novel experience. The
scenery is interesting and if you left early, it is still quite cool. Pulse rate is between 100 - 120pm.,
(except when a buffalo crashes off through the undergrowth just of to the side of you), and your breathing
rate is about one cycle for every 3 - 4 steps. By 11.00 am it has started to warm up, so you are sweating a
bit. The legs start to feel the strain of non-stop up-hill walking and the calf muscles ache. A sit-down breather
every 30 - 40 minutes is welcome. On reaching the first night's camp or hut, just by the start of the moorland, a
cup of tea / coffee revives you rapidly, and within an hour you feel almost normal.
3,000m - 4,000m. You should have slept very well, that is assuming you walked up and didn't drive all the way.
Breakfast tasted great. You're somewhat stiff, but this soon wears off after you get walking. The first couple
of hours are again very pleasant, as vegetation and scenery changes are spectacular, though after that the walk
becomes a bit of "a drag." A couple of blisters are forming, one on the instep and another on ball of the small
toe, but what the hell!. Pulse rate is similar to yesterday, but the pace of walking is definitely slower. Once
at the hut, if you have not used sun glasses during the walk, a mild headache will probably occur. Appetite not
so good, and the greasy stew offered for the evening meal is a definite no no!!. Leg cramps in the night.
4,000m - Summit. Getting up at 0300 isn't so bad, after all you've not slept since some noisy sod woke you up by
shouting and yelling about some poor rat that had gotten into the sleeping bag with him, (a regular occurrence if
you sleep in the huts though they are actually mice not rats). You've put on all the clothes that you have, but
are still half frozen with the cold. The tea and biscuits you forced down earlier still tastes foul, and after half
an hour walking you bring them back up. Immediately you feel 100% better. Unlike the previous day, it's now scree slopes
to Lenana, with one foot after the next if it's frozen scree, or 2 up, slide back 1 if it is not frozen. The question -
"Why am I doing this," now gets asked aloud. Just before dawn you reach Austrian Hut and your guide tells you that you may
go inside. (please try to be quiet, other climbers may be trying to sleep in there, not that the local guides and porters
could give a toss). Now you have a choice. Either you lie down and contemplate the walk back down though preferably you wish
you could just die, or there's Pt. Lenana just a stones throw away (actually about 45min.). Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.
Should be illegal at this altitude.
Descending. Having left Lenana, the run /slide back down the glacier to Austrian takes an exhilarating five minutes. With each
foot of descent you can feel the air getting thicker and heavier in the lungs. Now that it's daylight you can see the full horror
of the scree slopes, and you wonder how anybody, let alone yourself, ever made it up. Continuing the walk on down from the hut starts
to hurt, for the blisters you should have attended to yesterday, (but couldn't be bothered to), have got bigger and are now giving you
hell. On reaching the camp you get them taped up and they now feel a lot better. Further on down it's started to rain but you still feel
good, particularly so as you pass several groups now struggling upwards. That night, back at the base of the mountain, you sleep the sleep
of the grateful dead, though next morning it's a real struggle to get up. 101 muscle are hurting.
PLEASE NOTE If you are foolish enough to climb from say the Naro Moru River Lodge at under 2,000m to Mackinder's Camp at 4,100m. in under 24 hours,
EXPECT to feel rotten, and accept the fact that your chances of getting to Lenana are less than 50%. You have none but yourself to blame. Three days
going up the mountain should be considered the very minimum, four are much better.
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