I had a great weekend up on Mount Kenya. I left Nairobi before 6am and arrived at the trailhead by 9:30am. I experienced a mild setback because of a Mount Kenya park regulation that does not allow anyone to enter the park alone. It is a wise regulation based on common sense, but I came alone, so I had spent another 60-90 minutes looking for someone to accompany me on the mountain.

In a small town on the lower slopes of Mount Kenya I met a rastaman working at his bike shop. I figured he might be a good source of information. Njiru was his name, and as it turned out, he was actually a licensed porter (so at least I knew he had been on the mountain before). After explaining that I would be carrying my own pack, that I had my own food, that I would be doing my own cooking, that all I needed was for him to hike with me…and that we needed to start ASAP, he wholeheartedly joined me. However, this ordeal delayed my original plan, so I was unable to hike as far as I had wanted.

I was still able to spend two days on the mountain and gathered some good information for David’s and my upcoming expedition. I only made it to about 4,000m/13,000ft, but was still able to get a decent workout…and I realized that the pair of boots that I had planned to use for our trek gave me horrible blisters. So now I’ll be using a different pair of boots, and I’m hoping that my blisters will heal in the next eight days!

I took a few pictures, and you can see them in my fotoGallery. Unfortunately, throughout the entire weekend there was a smudge on my camera lens, and didn’t realize it until I was back in town…so nearly all of the pictures are a bit blurry in the lower center area.

In this photo: Batian and Nelion, the double-peak of Mt Kenya on the right in the clouds, just poking out above. Up there is where we’ll be next week!

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