Climbing Mount Kenya: Adventure, Altitude & a Shift in Perspective

When I reflect on my time spent in Kenya, rather like most of my previous adventures, it almost feels like a mirage in my memory…like I blinked and my seventeen days spent at the equator was over in a flash.

Because, to be honest with you, I went into the trip totally frazzled, burned out from an intense period of work, in the process of selling my house, packing my belongings, and trying to plan for a subsequent trip to Norway straight afterwards.

More on Lofoten here

I was thrilled to have been asked to attend the trip - my former biology teacher who is now one of my colleagues grabbed me in the school canteen one day and hastily asked if I was interested. My mind had been elsewhere entirely, and registered seventeen days in Kendal, so I was slightly befuddled but keen for a trip to the Lake District…I wasn’t entirely sure how we would spin out a seventeen day trip in Kendal but there you go.

When he put me right (no no, KENYA, not Kendal!) again I couldn’t quite believe what I was

hearing. But it was a pretty simple hell yes when I heard more about the trip. Volunteer work, safaris, and the opportunity to try and summit Mount Kenya (my first high-altitude mountain): I was game!

Below the summits of Mt Kenya on an acclimatisation day

And it really did fufill every expectation you could imagine. I had never visited anywhere in Africa before this trip, and to be honest with you, it had never been high on my travel list.

Post-trip, I am already certain that I will be returning, and as soon as I can.

Why?

So many reasons!

Firstly: Just wow, this scenery!!! The beauty of the jungles, the alien-quality of the high-altitude biomes, kaleidoscopic birds, and of course, the big animals we saw on safari. It was all such a privilege to experience and see in person. I remember avidly watching David Attenborough as a child, and to see similar scenes in the flesh was a real dream come true.

Secondly, Mount Kenya was an EPIC hiking experience. It was my first venture into the thin air above 2500m, and even spending time in Embu (a town on the Mt Kenya ring road) we were starting at 1800m, which was already allowing us to the start the acclimatisation process.

Our expedition was supported by 6 Kenyan Mountain Guides and a host of porters. As we made it higher, the thinning air impacted people differently, and personally I didn’t experience much by way of altitude sickness…a minor headache here, a little change to appetite there…that was at least, until summit day arrived.

It probably didn’t help that my period started on the expedition (oh how well timed that was…!) but summit day was long and tough.

We set off at 230am, slowly snaking our way up scree slopes towards the plateau and the final summit scramble with the highest Via Ferrara in the world. The mountain scape was bathed in the golden light of the spectacular sunrise, ridges stretching away from us into the distance, and the craggy snow-capped tops of the technical peaks to one side, the glacier spilling down its flank.

My symptoms had been slowly progressing with each metre ascended, and although I succeeded in reaching the summit, I was hard pushed to linger and made to leave as soon as possible, my hopes being that my symptoms would improve with a rapid descent.

What I didn’t know is that altitude symptoms don’t always magically disappear when you. descend. They can in fact, get worse for a time.

I fell into the latter category. Cue stomach issues of all kinds, I returned to the Mackinders base hut a shivering wreck, leaving the contents of my stomach on various parts of the trail back down. Not my finest hour!

Thankfully, with progress further down the mountain, I started to feel more human again, and with a hot shower under my belt when we had returned, the experience chalked up has been huge for me. I can’t wait to get high (so to speak) once again, and see if I can test myself more in the big mountain leagues…I’m so looking forward to what’s next in this regard.

But aside from all of these experiences, the mountains, the animals, everything that I have been fortunate enough to take part in on this fantastic trip, the main thing that stands out for me were the people we met.

Because simply put, I have never been a country where the people have exuded so much joy, kindness and displayed the ability to be grateful for whatever blessings came their way. And this really struck me. With so much going on in my own life, stressors coming from so many directions, it slapped a huge amount of perspective across my face. And yes, those feelings and stressors are valid within the context of my own life, however placing myself in a very different part of the world allowed me to take a step back, realise what a fortunate position I am in, and to reignite the daily joyfulness in life’s simple pleasures.

So whether it’s the tea I will be drinking from the Kenyan factory we visited, using the giraffe spoon to measure out baking ingredients, or planning my next adventure, I will always be grateful to this trip to Kenya for reminding me of my old adventurous self, the person that used to go on cycle tours solo across continents just because. The just because is such a privilege. All of it can be encompassed by joy. Even the regurgitations at the side of a mountain trail.

Happy adventuring!