> Take the fastest way up Mount Kenya, straight through the vertical bog
> Watch the sunrise from Point Lenana at 4,985 metres
> Your guide leads the way, porters carry the load and a cook keeps you fed
Three in the morning at Mackinders Camp. Tea, headlamp on, and out into the cold behind your guide. For three hours it's scree, rock and your own breathing. Then the sky turns orange, Batian and Nelion catch the first light, and you're standing on Point Lenana at 4,985 metres. Far to the south, Kilimanjaro rises above the clouds.
Naro Moru is the most popular route to Point Lenana, and the steepest and fastest. From the park gate you walk through montane forest, bamboo and giant heather to the cabins at Met Station, 3,050 metres. The next day takes you across the vertical bog, a steep and marshy slope, and along the Teleki Valley to Mackinders Camp at around 4,200 metres. After the summit you descend via Shipton Camp and the Mackinder Valley to Old Moses on the Sirimon side. On the last morning you walk down to the Sirimon gate.
Fast means hard. You climb 1,300 metres on day two and reach nearly 5,000 metres on the third morning, with little time to acclimatise. The trail is steep and loose in places, and summit day takes about 11 hours from the 3 a.m. start. You need good fitness and should know how your body reacts to altitude. Want more time to adjust? Take one of the longer routes. We arrange the guide, porters, cook, camps and transfers. You walk. Deal?
Your guide picks you up in Nairobi for the drive to the Naro Moru park gate on the western side of the mountain. From there it's a steady start of about 600 metres of climbing and 3 to 4 hours of walking.
The trail climbs through montane forest, then a zone of bamboo and giant heather, before you reach the edge of the high moorland. The lower slopes around the gate are one of the better places on the mountain to spot wildlife, so keep your camera ready.
Dinner and the night in the cabins at Met Station, 3,050 metres. A good first night to let your body start adjusting to the altitude.
A tough climb of about 1,300 metres, and the day this route is famous for. Count on 5 to 6 hours.
A short walk brings you to the end of the forest, and then the vertical bog begins: a steep slope of wet, tussocky moorland that turns into a real quagmire after rain. Gaiters or gum boots are worth their weight in gold here. Lunch is a picnic at the Picnic Rocks, on the edge of the escarpment above the Teleki Valley, with your first big view of the peaks. From there the trail follows the side of the valley.
Mackinders Camp lies at around 4,200 metres in the Teleki Valley, looking straight up at Batian, Nelion and the Tyndall Glacier. Dinner, a briefing from your guide and early to bed: tomorrow starts at 3 a.m.
Summit at sunrise, then a long descent to the other side of the mountain. Count on about 11 hours in total.
You leave at 3 a.m. and follow your guide for 3 to 4 hours over scree and bare rock to Point Lenana, 4,985 metres, in time for the African sunrise. On a clear morning Kilimanjaro shows up far to the south. Then you cross the top and descend to Shipton Camp in the Mackinder Valley for breakfast.
After breakfast, a gentle 5-hour descent through the Mackinder Valley, past giant lobelias and groundsels, and across the moorland brings you to Old Moses Camp at 3,300 metres. Sleep comes easy tonight.
A last stretch of about 3 hours, down through the rainforest to the Sirimon park gate on the northern side of the mountain.
The vehicle waits at the gate for the drive back to Nairobi, arriving in the early evening. Up from the west, down to the north: a full traverse of Mount Kenya in four days.
