Climbing the ‘other’ East African Rift Valley volcanoes
Adventuring in high places in December 2015
Three weeks. Five volcanic peaks. A combined elevation of 18 800 metres. More than a thousand kilometres between them. We climbed them in geological order, from an extinct volcano to a fiery new birth. From the oldest and grandest, to the youngest and fiercest. Combining these lesser-known East African giants was always going to pose serious challenges, but we did not expect that the hiking would be the least of them.
Mt Elgon, an ancient shield volcano, straddles the border between Uganda and Kenya with its five major peaks all over 4 000 metres. With hiking on the Ugandan side breaking the bank at more than $100 per person per day, as well as high visa fees, we decided to focus on the Kenyan peaks. The aptly-named Kangaroo taxi shuttle hopped us painfully from Eldoret to Kitale. After expunging the ATM in preparation for the expected and unexpected fees, our reliable taxi-driver friend, Martin, dropped us off at the lush park gate. By the next morning, once all the enthusiastically-stamped forms and shiny greenbacks had fallen into the right hands, we were ready. Or so we thought… Uuuuf! Lifting our packs required a special kind of grunting — this was clearly not going to work for a 35 kilometre approach hike gaining a couple of thousand metres. But what could we throw out when faced with uncertain water supplies, humid rainforest, icy alpine peaks, and significant appetites to be catered for by the ‘hiking’ supplies scrounged at the Nakumatt supermarket in Kitale? All the while, the resident waterbuck and zebra continued grazing, relishing this uncommon spectacle.
During the gruelling two-day slog up through enchanting rainforests, buffalo-filled bamboo stands and squishy moorlands, Margot had developed a need to photograph all of the many fresh leopard faeces and footprints that we passed. I am still not sure whether this was to show off when returning home, or to pre-emptively document the cause of our mysterious disappearance. Our alert ranger, Silas, did nothing to alleviate these concerns, informing us that they were all from that same morning and that the leopards were probably watching us from the trees above. Comforting really. These worries, however, soon vanished as we found ourselves among giant groundsels and everlasting flowers on the precipitous rim of an ancient world.
Lower Elgon Peak (4 302 m) was our first and quite formidable task, consisting of a more-than-full day’s hike in thin air, ranging over valleys and ridges along the edge of the wide crater. The peak itself is the majestic guardian of Sacred Tarn, several hundred metres below. Beyond the tarn, the foothills stretched as far and as untouched as one could see, seemingly reaching all the way to the charged horizon above the dark blue waters of Lake Victoria. Unfortunately, there were signs of poachers stealing across these borderlands from Uganda — small snares, rusty cans and the occasional pile of old ash. The constant panga-clapping to deter buffaloes, Margot’s increasingly sore ankles and the worries of poacher-looting back at our camp were our only grey thoughts under those thunderous skies.
A crimson sunrise bade farewell to the endless stars and frigid night, and welcomed our next challenge: Koitoboss Peak (4 222 m). This is the usual peak to bag on the Kenyan side, so a path of sorts did exist — our stiff legs from the previous day’s 12-hour bundu-bash were thankful for this. Weaving through furry groundsels and across crystal-clear streams, we approached the seemingly unscalable, vertical fortress of grey basalt that is the peak. A steep break on the far side of the rock tower led to the summit platform, and some very welcome tuna mayo on by-now-powdered crackers. A pile of bones near the summit, we were told, were the remains of annual sacrifices made on this sacred peak by some of the local Elgon tribes, to ensure a good harvest for the year to come.
By now we were scratching the bottom of our food bags for good sustenance, and convinced that our exceptional fortune with the unusually good weather would soon run out, we headed all the way back down the volcanic massif as fast as we could. We were eager to spend as little time dealing with park ‘officials’ as possible, and keen to venture onto new volcanic lands. Alas, this was not so simple, and more fervent stamping and crisp notes were required to release us from the park. A dingy night at the Mt Elgon Lodge was redeemed by a bountiful breakfast, providing sustenance for the long and bumpy haul down to Kisumu. Avoiding hair-raising experiences on local shuttles, we negotiated again with our reliable friend Martin. After a run-in with the local traffic police, some cash-incentivised driving speed reduction, and many loops of the same CD, we bailed out in Kisumu and headed straight for some proper food, with a sunset view over Lake Victoria.
Mt Longonot (2 776 m), our second Rift Valley volcano, promised to be a thoroughly enjoyable day hike only a couple of hours from Nairobi. That’s if we could get to it. After the catastrophic city traffic, and a wild goose chase for hostels that had relocated, we eventually rented a little sedan and hit the road — literally. Recent rains had turned the pot-holed approach road into 4x4 super-swamper heaven. The unfortunate taxi driver from whom we rented the car is probably still hearing mud flinging off the underside of his city-slicker. Eventually, after midday, we got there! And it certainly looked the part: a steep-sided, intact and circular crater that rises out of the Rift Valley floor, and overlooks the pretty Lake Naivasha. Those same recent rains had also done much to erode the heavily-worn footpath heading up to the crater and all around the rim. But the expansive views circumnavigating the volcano, the friendly chameleons, and the smell of sulphur rising from the crater floor below, more than made up for it. By this stage, it was clear that Margot’s painful ankles were actually a fairly serious injury, probably caused by the ridiculous loads lugged up Mt Elgon. Being Margot, she popped some Nurofen tablets, took some rest days, and pushed on.
Mt Meru. The Big One. Fifth highest peak in Africa, and 4 566 metres of active stratovolcano. At this point, though, I should add some context. Margot and I had driven up to Kenya from South Africa earlier in the year, had been working in Kenya for three months before this volcano expedition began, and after driving down to Tanzania, all this travel had taken its toll. Kenyan roads are not placid places. That said, neither are Tanzanian roads. We arrived in Moshi with a fierce hatred of speedbumps and roadside corruption, nightmares of mean trucks, several skin infections each, and rapidly dwindling bank balances. Fortunately, at this low point, we were saved by a vibrantly excited and familiar face — my good friend Daniël stepped off an excruciatingly delayed plane from Jo’burg at Kilimanjaro International. And he had sneakily packed many kilograms of the very best South African biltong! Despite him not having slept a wink through a night of fighting with incompetent airline officials, the warmest welcome we could give him was a quick coffee before heading out to tackle our third, and highest, East African volcano.
Days 1 and 2 on Mt Meru lull one into a sleepy sense of complacency. The soaking rainforests, hollering colobus monkeys and sneaky views of the huge volcanic amphitheatre provide worthy distractions. The paths are wide and well-maintained, and there are many, many others with you — including porters for the porters, hauling up hefty gas cylinders to cook for the guide, back-up guide and ranger. Yes, three self-sustaining hikers (we carried all our own things) without question needed such support for this peak, we were told — actually the permitting system had recently changed, making it practically impossible to trek up Mt Meru independently. But Martin, David and Ben were fantastic companions. Fancy huts, comfy bunk beds and Ben’s limitless supply of piping hot tea were absolute luxuries.
This cushy start was shattered on the summit day (Day 3). Completely shattered. After a short whisky-induced sleep, we groggily set off at midnight. Polepole was the background sound for the night. But it needn’t have been said: the terrain was so steep, so loose and well, plain sketchy, that slowly slowly was the only way to make progress, especially in the thin, freezing air. After hours of trudging up more than a thousand metres along precipitous knife edges, we approached the steep, rocky summit ridge. Two hundred metres up to go! The faint dawn light only made the exposure more obvious. Soon enough, the world fell away beneath our feet as we marvelled over the gaping ash cone way down below us, the smoky plains thousands of metres lower still, and the first rays of the sun illuminating the majestic Kilimanjaro. It was a perfect scene that without a doubt made the pending, painful 3 000 metres of descent back down to the park gate worth it. Daniël had torn his hip-flexor muscles, strong drugs could no longer mask Margot’s damaged ankles, and I was dehydrated. We finished at 5 pm that same day, completely finished. We’d set off on Day 1 only 50 hours before!
Optimistically, we set aside a rest day before our last peak — a day dedicated to espresso milkshakes, cheesy pizzas and chill time in the swimming pool — but it was not to be. Ol Doinyo Lengai (2 962 m) proved to be frustratingly difficult to reach. It is emphatically remote in northern Tanzania, somewhere on a road to nowhere. Not even 4x4 rental companies were willing to allow us to drive out there, claiming the vehicles return in a bad way. So we hopped onto a local bus that was more akin to a brightly painted limousine-length tank. Cramped beyond polite description, we were subjected to a hellish six-hour simultaneous test of the bus’s sideways rollover angle and top speed. It crashed across rocky rivers and thrashed through enormous erosion gullies, eventually regurgitating us into a colourful, shouting hustle of a hundred beaded Maasai in an isolated village, between an active volcano and a giant (seasonally) red lake.
The “Mountain of God” is a unique natrocarbonatite volcano, producing the ‘coldest’ known lava at a paltry 500-odd degrees Celsius. It last erupted spectacularly in 2008, but recent research from 2013 noted the crater has been filling again. To us, it loomed large. And very steep. Tolkien’s Mount Doom. After a few hot and fitful hours of sleep, we clambered into a beat-up Land Rover at midnight and hurtled across old ash flows to the base of the beast: 1 600 metres of slippery, eroded ash at repose — thankfully it was dark. As the hours passed, so the slope became ever steeper. As we discovered to our increasing terror, recent rains had cemented the ash slope, turning it from tiring powder into a life-threatening, slippery slab. Hiking poles became makeshift ash-axes. Promising hand-holds disintegrated at the touch of our gardening gloves. At 5 am, after our local guide slipped, I called for a time-out to assess the risks we were facing, especially descending. We weren’t prepared for this without a rope, or contact to any sort of rescue, and the slope was only getting steeper. At a mere 500 metres from the summit, sniffing the sulphurous air, we called it and headed back down carefully. The rising phoenix of the Rift Valley did not seem to take notice. Success can mean many things, and on this day I know that I was just happy we got down safely.
Individually, these ‘other’ East African Rift Valley volcanoes were unique hiking experiences: extinct Mt Elgon is superb for trekking, Mt Longonot is a phenomenal day out, Mt Meru is arguably a worthier mountaineering option than Kilimanjaro, and the active Ol Doinyo Lengai, well, that one caters for a special strain of mountain madness. Combining them, however, was very tough. As we learnt, getting to the volcano is more dangerous than the volcano itself, and it always takes longer to get there than to get back. We left with a strong respect for these volcanoes, feeling privileged to have ventured across such old and new lands. Unlike the infamous Alexander Supertramp, I am grateful to have shared these experiences with the best of friends.
Expedition members: Matthew Davey, Margot Leger & Daniël F Cloete
Written by Matthew Davey
Photographs by Margot Leger, Matthew Davey, Silas & Martin
This expedition owes a debt of gratitude to the Supertramp Award from The Mountain Club of South Africa and to a grant from the Irvine Fund at the University of Oxford. It was an expensive endeavour made possible by their support, and we are very grateful.
The Supertramp Award is generously funded by an anonymous donor through the Magaliesberg Section of the Mountain Club of South Africa. The annual award supports unique mountain adventures planned by young South Africans.
The Irvine Fund, established in memory of A C Irvine of Merton College (University of Oxford), who lost his life during the 1924 Everest Expedition, assists members of the university to go on expeditions to mountains in Britain or abroad.
