Our original plan was to attack Mt.Kenya from the west from Naro Moru village, but because Jasser by chance lived there and he knew the area, he recommended us to take Eastern route from Chogoria village instead, because it supposed to be more scenic and also a bit longer to achieve better acclimatization. We said “ Why not” and the plan was changed. That’s the beauty of travelling independently. If you discover something you haven’t thought about or you are in the mood of doing something else than planned, you just change your planJ
So on Monday we woke up into beautiful sunny morning in a green garden campsite in Chogoria. We were at 1500m above sea level and had 53 kilometers and 3300 elevation meters to clear to the top Austrian hut, from where we were going to climb to the top of Nelion, the second highest peak of Mt. Kenya.
We had nice breakfast, packed everything and then…we put our backpacks on the back. Uffff…they were so heavy. I had around 26 kilos, but Marcin for example had over 30!! One of the downside of Chogoria route was the hike to the park gate. 29 km to 3000m. Obviously all the other tourists pay a 4x4 and drive there, but we no…we were tough. At least we thought we were J
Problem was that none of us has ever hiked with such load, so we were very surprised how quickly our strength was vanishing. I was basically fine. It was tough, tiring and looooong, but at the end of the day I was always ahead. It was also maybe because I bought some weed in the village and was smoking all the way long J
Funny story…”Ehm.. you know…would you be able to get me something to smoke..you know..” I asked the campsite owner the evening we arrived to the village. “Ehm…yeeeaahh…I can…for how much” he asked. I quickly calculated for how much we were buying in Costa Rica and said “Let’s say for 1000 shillings”, “OK sir…it would be around 50 sticks”. I was expecting loose stuff so I didn’t listen to him much and gave him money. What was my surprise when he really brought 50 already rolled joints!!
So in very good and easy mood I was monotonously walking up, getting lost in thoughts, forgetting pain and tiredness and enjoying with my sharpened senses all those completely new things around my floating existence J
It was getting dark when I stopped again to wait for the others. After half an hour came Jaro. After another 20 minutes Marcin and Jana emerged from the dusk. Strange was that they were walking weirdly fast. When they overtook us, we saw why. Marcin was carrying Jana’s backpack, lighter of all attached climbing things, because he left his behind. Jana was carrying nothing. With Jaro we kept walking slowly up using my only head lamp, because Jaro lost his somewhere.
It took us another hour to see light ahead. “It has to be the camp” I said and it really was. After 13 hours of walking we reached. We just saw Marcin going to retrieve his backpack in hired 4x4, Jana was lying already in the sleeping bag, so we build the tent, warmed up my Czech can goulash, which I unwisely took with and went to sleep. It wasn’t a good night. Because of exhaustion I had fever, but I felt good inside. It was a real expedition, we were going for the goal from the very beginning and it was not for free…I liked thatJ
The next day we woke up the same amazing fresh morning with a smell of the mountain towering above us. We took a picture at the National park gate and headed in. After yesterday suffering, Jana and Marcin refused to try to get to Mintos hut at 4300m, so we had only a short 8 kilometer hike to Chogoria road head campsite at 3300m.
And the story continued. Powered up by the green dope I enjoyed hiking under the sun between bushes which replaced trees, listening to the wind and sound of my steps on the soft soil and curiously peeking up at our goal in the clouds. Paradise J
After 3 hours of walking we took a rest of the day at the camp, which took another day from our spare week. Only the night was a horror because I don’t know why I had a fever again and was more shivering than sleeping. This was unfortunately following me up to the top hut!! No pills helped.
But during the day when was quite warm it was good and could enjoy another 8 kilometer hike to the next camp at Mintos hut at 4300m. This time it was not a wide road anymore, it was quite steep and we were slowly getting to high altitude, so I didn’t want to risk the green boost getting me altitude sickness, but it didn’t change anything on the Sherpa-like feeling I had. One heavy slow step after another, carrying your burden up with determination enhanced by closing Nelion, which was growing bigger and higher every minute.
Almost from the beginning we saw the end the trek behind a sharp cliff sticking out into the valley like the rock in Minas Tirith and it looked from the beginning quite close. But the opposite was the truth J We were hiking towards it almost the whole day. “Where the hell is it!!!” swore Jaro after we passed another “last” horizon. With all the tiredness at the end of the days it seemed neverending.
But we reached. We had just enough time to go get water from nearby lake, cook some instant pasta and die inside the sleeping bag. I was prepared for another fever night, but what I was afraid more this time was diarrhea. We had water treatment pills to be able to drink water from streams, but this time we took it from slack lake. We could see some crumbs or mosquito larvas swimming inside the bottle and floating dead when we sprayed them with treatment drops J Fortunately those were high efficiency drops and we didn’t have to spend any extra toilet paper!!
The fourth day on the mountains, after some heavy discussion, we did only an acclimatization hike to the top hut and back with only all climbing gear, which was actually around third of the weight we carried!! The walk was like flying. It was so strange to walk with only normal load. But we were getting higher and higher, so we couldn’t walk much faster anyway. Jana got a bit sick at the half way, so she returned, but we three we reached the Austrian hut at 4800m.
And then we saw it. Lewis glacier at the bottom and towering peak of Nelion rising above it and us. I saw this view many times on the internet, but standing personally so close to the mountain was breathtaking. I was staring a while at the summit and its smaller relatives around, like Point Lenana or Point John and then immediately found our climbing route in the topo and started to locate it on the rock. Looks pretty easy and obvious J
With the help of one local guide we locked the gear in one of the rooms and went back to Mintos. Rather easy hike today, but we were same tired as the last day, so evening routine was exactly the same.
It looked that we are more like two pairs than a group of four. Me and Jaro walking together, cooking together, sharing the tent and the same for Marcin and Jana. We didn’t even talked to each other much because we were walking separately due to speed and we were usually walking the whole day.
After another day from the spare week we packed up the camp and hiked up to the hut again. This time we all reached and in very good time, so after occupying one bedroom in the hut for and extra fee, we hiked across the glacier to the climb base. We wanted to see how difficult is to walk on ice without crampons, how long time we need to scramble up to the base and how is the rock. Everything looked positive and possible, except clouds which came at the afternoon and covered Nelion for couple of hours. Unexpected weather change after a week under the blue sky!
When we got back after another complete day of walking, we quickly cooked some instant pasta dinner and started packing for the climb. Somehow, probably because high altitude, lack of good sleep or exhaustion, I was losing my focus, was not able to concentrate and was just sitting there, not listening to Jaro’s rising voice and basically being useless. I knew that it was happening, but I couldn’t do anything about that!! “Jiri, put all your stuff here that we can see if we need one backpack or two” ordered Jaro. After five minutes I was still sitting on the bed holding the rope and staring into nothingness!
You can imagine how good it felt when I slipped into the sleeping bag, after I mindlessly packed and prepared my things, and could for that short time before I lost consciousness think about, that the day which we were dreaming about was finally here J
1 comment:
Nice, keep on posting!
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