THE mountaineer in Kenya is a lucky man. Provided he can endure Africa’s discomforts of intense heat. dense bush, and the countless insects, he has at his disposal an unlimited supply of rock and ice. The highest peak is Kilimanjaro, with an ice-capped crater soaring up to nineteen thousand feet, but undoubtedly the star attraction is Mt. Kenya. and it was here that I found myself along with Martin Harris and Sylvano Borruso in the August of 1966.
Mt. Kenya and its satellites form a superb area for climbing. The problems and scale are Alpine, the weather far more reliable. The central peaks of Nelion (17,019 ft.) and Batian (17,055 ft.) give long routes on rock and ice, while the myriad lesser peaks provide shorter routes, ideal for the very necessary acclimatisation to these altitudes, as well as being seamed with possible new routes. The approach to the mountain is long, twenty miles from the nearest farm, and far from pleasant. The muddy bamboo thickets give way to giant heather and groundsels – like nightmare cabbages gone to seed – then monster tussocks and slimy hollows which give really foul going.
It was after two days of this glimpse of purgatory that we arrived and established ourselves at Two Tarn hut. In the evening the shadowy mists which had clung to the hillsides all day finally cleared, and we saw the mountain before us towering above the tarn, its twin summits golden in the setting sun. The next few days were spent acclimatising. I lay on a warm slab watching the others perform on Midget Peak across the valley the first day, but then I felt better so Martin and I stormed up the N.W. ridge of Pt. Piggot. It was slabby, unprotected and nice, and the sun was very pleasant on top. But the afternoon mists drifted in and a guidebook was consulted. Abseils down to the Tyndall glacier were the done thing, though it looked steep. But if Baillie could do it, so could Harris. Eight hours later we arrived on the glacier, swearing never to read a guidebook again.
We had had enough of Two Tarn hut and so next day we were staggering round to Kami hut for the North face routes and the serious business of the trip. While Martin heroically went back again for more food, Sylvano and I looked at the nearby N.E. face of Pt. Dutton. There were no recorded ascents of this face. We roped up at the foot of an easy looking chimney. Twenty minutes later we were back at the bottom again and finding a way round left. At last we were off up cracks and grooves which gave pleasant climbing, about IV sup. by Kenya standards, then we were on the piled gendarmes of the N.E. ridge which soon led to the twin summit blocks. We chose a loose looking gully for the descent, and were just sipping a brew back at the hut when there was this lethal-sounding trundle which turned out to be coming straight down our evil little gully. The snow continued all night for a change, so we festered until it stopped, then went to prospect next day’s route, the Firmin-Hicks, the North face standard route on Batian.
We were off at 5 a.m. stumbling over the rocks. When we reached the bottom of the first pitch the dawn was only a thin red line on the horizon, and so we kept ourselves warm by falling off until it was light enough to see. Quickly we were up the first gully in a torrent of conflicting instructions and muttered curses. When we reached the amphitheatre above it was glowing yellow in the early morning sun and bits of cotton wool clouds were forming over the northern deserts.
Across the amphitheatre rose the Firmin tower, cleft by a deep icy crack. Harris left his rucksack to me and thrutched up it. It was only V. Diff., but hard enough at 16,500 ft. Tiptoeing along the ridge above we saw the Northey glacier sweep up into nothingness on our right. A steep bit, a heave and a grunt, and we were at the Japanese bivouac – a lovely bit of dry stone-walling. The rest of the route slowly disappeared behind us: Shipton’s notch, a crest of grotty pink rock which we straddled and watched the flakes slide away into anonymity in the mists of Batian’s West face; an ice gully on the South face, then the summit. It was twelve noon, we were at 17,000 ft., and I felt lousy. Down quickly, before the snow comes. But too late as usual, and so we resigned ourselves to .html gully full of wet snow, waterfalls, and jamming abseil ropes. At last the hut arrived and at 5.30 p.m. we tumbled in, pleased at having made a competent time on the route. The record was 55 hours in ideal conditions.
Next day Sylvano left for the sun and sand of the coast, and the following day we tried the Window Arête on Pt. Peter. a short but hard route, graded V and A1. I felt hard and led an awkward groove with no runners. Martin didn’t like it. He got gripped on the pegging too, being only a little hard man, so I had to do it, only to get launched into a desperate layback after the pegs. Easy rocks led to the top and I felt chuffed. Martin was depressed.
Our big target for this trip was the N.W, pillar of Nelion. First climbed by Cliff and Rutowitz in three days, and graded V sup. and A2, it lacked a second ascent. Harris wasn’t so keen, but such was my elation that I promised to lead all the hard pitches. The evil light of dawn saw us pratting despondently about on the Krapf glacier. Martin took hours over the first pitch, then I started off on the second and fell off. So much for the hard man – Martin took over, and disappeared up a horrid looking chimney. The chimney was horrid and I thrutched up it aching from my lob. But above we moved leftwards into the sun with the yawning glacier beneath, and life felt better even though I did have the big sack. At 10.30 we crossed the amphitheatre and the site of Cliff’s first bivouac and felt even better. A long groove and we’ll be up before dark.
Nemesis came, in the form of the afternoon snow shower. It was 2.30 now. and we hid under an overhang trying to identify the next pitch. Martin eventually pegged a damp crack. Above was obviously the ’sunlit slab climbed for sheer joy’ of the original description. We climbed it because there was no other way. It was plastered in soft snow and I followed unashamedly on a tight rope. Another pitch up an evil wet crack on evil wet wedges brought us to Cliff’s second bivouac. However it was deep in snow, so I pressed on up an easy pitch above to a dry sloping ledge, found the flattest part, and brought up Martin. Here we bivouacked. It was 5.30 and the tropical night was an hour away, if ’tropical’ is the right word for any night spent at nearly seventeen thousand feet.
The sun was high over the yellow plains before we stirred. I set off along the traverse line looking for a Grey Slab. No sign of one, so I came back sixty feet and found the peg and krab Cliff had used for his tension traverse. Martin bounced across and I followed, slithering, cursing and slipping after him. More pitches followed for me to get gripped on, a last thrutchy redeeming chimney, and we crawled on to the summit in the best Alpine fashion.
The descent remained, but as usual this presented problems. Our plans to traverse to Batian and go down the Firmin-Hicks were foiled when we saw how icy was the south face of Batian. We hadn’t much hemp and after our epic on Pt. Piggot Martin’s red rope was noticeably shorter than the white, so abseiling back down the route was vetoed. There remained the S.E. face of Nelion, normally the usual route, but very icy at this time of year. Step cutting downhill with a peg hammer provided the first unpleasant thrill, and the final abseils were in true Mt. Kenya tradition of slippery snow and wet jamming ropes. Eventually we were down and trudged across the Lewis glacier to a brew at the top hut. It was 4.30 p.m. and we were on the wrong side of the hill. The mist thickened around us as we set out again over Lenana, the third highest peak, for the Kami hut. Out came the map and compass, but we were off the map. So we resorted to following a ridge down, and in a short mist clearance there was the hut above us. In the last flicker of daylight we staggered into the hut. Colin and Alec fed us and tucked us in our pits.
We were finished with the mountain now. All that remained was to trudge back down through the mud and forest in the rain, watching for grey elephant shapes that loomed and rustled through the mist.