Getting High Like Planes

On second thought, I think 16,355’ is a little below cruising altitude. But still.

On the way out of Nairobi on Thursday, I passed a truck with crimson swastikas painted on it like logos. WTF.

We spent the night in Nanyuki. It’s a little town smack on the equator at the base of Mt. Kenya. Oh yeah, and it has a giant British army base. Which you would think was kind of bizarre, since Kenya’s been independent for decades and the Brits aren’t supposed to have any influence. As it turns out, the northern region of the country is all desert, which is perfect for military exercises. So the UK pays Kenya to let then build a base, and locals are employed as drivers. Soldiers in town for training buy souvenirs at jacked-up prices and go to supermarkets, pumping money into the local economy. And they marry Kenyan women, and leave behind half-white babies. So the whole arrangement leaves pretty much everyone happy, except perhaps the people living in the northern desert. Other than the army base Nanyuke was rather unremarkable, except for the woman I walked past carrying her baby in an American flag, with Obama’s face painted on it.

Friday, we started up the mountain from the park entrance at 7,930’, my guide and myself carrying packs somewhere around 20 lb each. Our porter carried somewhere around 70 lb. We started up through the cedars and olive trees, pausing to watch a group of black-and-white colobus monkeys. We passed buffalo, elad, dik dik and elephant tracks. Baboon poop was scattered everywhere. Somewhere around 2 miles into our 6-mile climb, a giant truck came lurching up the rutted road. “Hop on!” “Seriously?” “Yeah!” So we climbed up, hung on, and hoped with everything we had that the truck wouldn’t tip over as it climbed through bamboo forests, fields of head-height shrubby wildflowers and into the tropical highlands, navigating ditches, rocks, mud pits, curves and pitches, eventually depositing us at Old Moses Camp.

From Old Moses, at 10,830’, I could look down over the highlands and forest over the middle region of Kenya, to the distant shadowy hills of Samburu National Park, across towns and reflective plastic that gave away the flower-growing greenhouses erected at the base of the mountain. Wildflowers were everywhere among the rocks and grass, and twisting blackened skeletal shrubs leaked evidence of the fire that swept through the highlands several years prior.

Friday morning, we started climbing straight up the mountain in the bright, clear sunshine. Right around 11,000’, I started recognizing plants. Sage grew everywhere. There was a variations of the dandelion and thistles. Clumps of daisies lined the trail. And that little pom-pom-looking purple flower that grows from a bed of round dark-green leaves with a lighter streak through the center. And I swear I found a variation of Indian paintbrush. Anyway, I read this article last semester that claimed altitude and latitude have the same effects on diversity. So if you go up in elevation, you should see similar changes as if you traveled north or south. Which was exactly what was happening: All these plants that grow near sea level at home were growing at the equivalent elevation of Mt. Hood’s snowcap. The only difference was, they all come from different ecosystems at home.

We eventually arrived at a weather station (one of 14 at its elevation in the world) and turned to traverse the mountain’s slopes before turning into another valley. As we climbed, we passed through changing vegetation: most noticeably, giant stalks covered in feathery leaves which remain in place when they die, insulating the plant within from freezing nighttime temperatures so it can retain large amounts of water without vascular damage. Rock hyraxes, giant, shaggy marmots, clambered over rocks and moss. Eagles wheeled above us. The valley climbed gently upward past caves and cliffs to where it deposited us at Shipton Camp, nestled beneath Mt. Kenya’s peaks at 13,800’. Laying down in my sleeping bag, it took me an hour to convince my body that the world still contained oxygen.

We rose at 2:20 in the morning to consume tea and crackers before setting out at 3:00. We got lucky: the scree slopes froze overnight. Stars outlined the black silhouettes of the peaks above. Climbing under the familiar constellations of the Pleiades, Cassiopeia, and Draco was strangely comforting. We climbed straight uphill. I concentrated on the ground in front of me. Looking up was too daunting. In three hours, we covered 2 miles and climbed 2,555 vertical ft, arriving at the summit of Point Lenana just before sunrise. There were three items on top of the peak: a flag, a plaque placed there a few hundred years ago, and a concrete container with a smashed plastic window-top. Cause, you know, Kenya just voted to adopt a new constitution, and someone brought a copy all the way to the top of the mountain to be enshrined. And then another someone stole it. Which is really a bit bizarre, since I can get a copy on newsprint for casi nada down in the city. Bit of pointless effort there, don't you think? Anyway.

Ice crusted the rocks we stood on. Clouds swirled around us, obscuring the mountain and its peaks. Then, the crimson sun broke the horizon below and began to climb (Yeah, I looked down on the sunrise. How weird is that?). The clouds surrounding us evaporated, leaving us to look down the length of the mountain past the lower peaks, valleys, gorges and moraine lakes surrounding us. Behind me rose Mt. Kenya’s summit, alight with alpine glow, above a glacier flowing down the adjacent valley. Looking down to the East, we could see a tiny camp erected for climbers, containing the world’s highest toilet. And several men stripping to take a naked photo in front of the mountain.

And then we began our descent. Back to Shipton for breakfast, then all the way down to Old Moses, passing hyena tracks along the way. Once we passed below the clouds, it felt like all of Kenya was laid out before us.


Monday we walked the rest of the way down to the gate. And we found a chameleon on the road, which pretty much made my day. It was tiny, with a hump on its nose, thus the name Rhinoceros chameleon. Here ends Gavrila’s Epic Journey of Mt. Kenya.

Lessons learned:

• I will love my boots with all of my heart and soul forever and always.
• “Step by step” has never taken a more literal meaning and has probably turned into my watchword for life.
• Oxygen is wonderful.