kenya: mt kenya part 2

day 3 dawns: actually no, it doesnt, because we start climbing the mountain at 3am in the morning. its freezing cold (and for all you skeptics, yes, it genuinely is cold, ice on the ground and everything!!) and the climb is endless. for about 4hours we climb (there were more happy faces, but i cant show you coz it was too cold to take my camera out, haha! also the climb is really steep and loose rock, although i have to say its not as bad as climbing from the other side (the one we did with you, kennie). this is where sandi starts to curse me for bringing her along. so we do 10 steps, rest. 10 steps, rest. and on and on. the one thing that made it bearable is that it was a clear night with a full moon and the view under the moonlight of the peaks ahead and the smaller lesser peaks behind and below us was absolutely beautiful.

day 3 dawns: for real this time, as we approach the peak, the sun starts to rise from the clouds below us. you can see in the 2 pictures above and below - one is uncle raj (he was walking behind me so hes in a surprising number of the pictures:) and the other one is the sun rising - for some reason, an optical illusion, the sun seemed to rise out of the clouds. it was astoundingly, awesomely beautiful - that was the moment you forgot the pain and cold and tiredness...

then as the sun comes up and bathes everything in a wonderful golden light, you see the landscape open up below you. the pictures dont even come close to doing it justice - its a huge 360deg landscape stretching off as far as the eye can see...

heres uncle raj again!

finally at around 6.30am we climb the last meter up the rock to point lenana, 4985m above sea level. the view is stunning, as is the wind and cold, so we stay there just 15 minutes or so.the flag behing was apparently planted by the first kenyan to climb the mountain after kenyas independance in 1963, but it looked suspiciously new and had a cell phone number on it, so i suspect someone replaced it at one point. here is sandi feeling cold....



this is the view from lenana point (if you look closely you will see the star of the show, uncle raj in the picture:)

now starts the long trek back. first we have to go through a pretty tough downhill climb of 'scree' loose rock and sand that is very slippery and very draining. on the plus side the sun is shining and the view is absolutely stunning. i tried to join up a bunch of pics to give you a small idea of what it was like. click on the pic to enlarge and then you can see sandi and co on the ridge in the center climbing down.

as we climb down we pass nelion and batian on the right, as well as the lewis glacier, which has shrunk considerably due to global warming. these are the 2 highest peaks on the mountain, but require rock-climbing tools and skills to climb. (you can see the 2 peaks behind me in this pic)

for some reason, coming down had much better scenery than going up - maybe because it was now light? also when going down the view is spread out before you, whereas on the way up you have to consciously turn around and look at it. anyway it was stunning and beautiful and we enjoyed it thoroughly. my only problem was temperature control - as the sun came up, it started to get hot and we had dressed for being on the peak with many layers so we had to start shedding clothes. in the pic below you can see the lewis glacier mentioned above...

by around 9am we are at mackinders camp. we are so tired at this point that most of us drop onto the benches and fall asleep! only to be woken up by our wonderful porters with a hot breakfast!

i was planning to do 2 parts to this story but i have so many pictures - so i will torture you by forcing you to read through installment 3 soon....