u/Pflunt

After years of convincing, my best mate persuaded me to put on a harness and do a proper climb. Since he’s based in Kenya we decided to go with Mt. Kenya.

It’s not a particularly popular peak, with somewhere between 50-100 summits a year, but it was an absolutely incredible first true mountaineering experience for me.

We went with a technical guide to lead us through the summit day, but otherwise brought all our own food and camping gear. Though many opt for a full package where you have cooks, porters, and all the gear ready for you.

The summit day took us 13 hours total. 10 hours on the mountain and 3 hours hiking to and from base camp.

Generally the climb is done in 18 pitches, with the crux being roughly a 5.9. A lot of those 18 pitches are more or less scrambles that can be simulclimbed if you have someone who knows where they are going.

Mt Kenya is a fascinating mountain. being on the equator you climb the north face in summer and south face in the winter months.

Besides the summit day, there is a day of hiking either side for about 15km. We spent our first night camping at old Moses (3300m), our second night at shiptons camp (4200m), then started our summit push early the next morning. Many spend an additional night at shiptons before the summit push for acclimitization, but my friend and I decided to push straight for it and luckily had no issues as we had both spent time around 5000m just two weeks before.

Overall, phenomenal trip in a beautiful unique landscape. As someone with almost no climbing experience, it pushed me to my limits but was also entirely doable.

On the cost side of things, the permit for being in Mt. Kenya is about $90 per day. So between my friend and I we spent $270 each on that. Our technical guide was about $500 total, so $250 each. Everything else we brought ourselves so after food costs and gas we probably spent a little under $600 for the whole trip!

If you have any questions please let me know!