Mount Kenya - Day 7

January 31, 2016 - MacKinder's Camp (4200m)

Got awoken at 04:00 by giggling girls in the tents surrounding us as they got ready for their sunrise climb of Lenana. I had trouble getting back to sleep as there was constant noise from this point on as the tent city around us stirred. Finally I got up at 05:45 and started packing gear. We packed all the climbing gear as we did not know what we were in for. The climbs we originally wanted to do (Krapf Rognon and Pt. Thompson) did not look that appealing due to lots of steep scree, so we decided to move camp today to MacKinder's and scramble a bunch of spires around Pt. Peter on our way. Sammy, Kat, and I left camp around 08:00 and started the steep ascent to a tiny tarn, where there was an equally tiny hut. We dropped our packs and did an easy scramble up the peak behind the hut which gave us a nice view back down to Shipton's. We continued upwards on a steep scree field and climbed three small bumps along the way, each involving some easy third class scrambling. At the col, there was one more bump that needed to be climb and some fourth class scrambling was to be had for this summit to be obtained. Back at the col, we sat down for a brief lunch as our porters were climbing through. We next descended about 200m of steep scree, followed by a walk past a couple pretty lakes, and finally another 150m steep scree ascent. This took a long time as any upward movement still seems to be an extreme amount of effort at 4500m. Reaching the next col, we took a break as clouds rolled in and obscured the view for the rest of the day. A lovely alpine traverse through moss covered rocks made it feel like we were hiking in Tolkien's Middle Earth as we continued past another pretty alpine tarn until we had to descend to the American Camp. Another short break was taken there and we then turned westward down the Teleki Valley. A kilometer or so of easy travel brought us to the MacKinder hut where we are camped outside tonight. Just as we arrived, the skies openned up in a downpour, so we scrambled into the hut dining area for an afternoon tea with cookies and popcorn.

Camp in the early morning light.