Namesake of a nation

At a glance

Altitude: 1,600-5,199 m above sea level.

Area: National Park 715 sq km, National Reserve 2,124 sq km.

Location: Nyeri District, Central Province. 

Distance from Nairobi: Mount Kenya straddles the equator, 175 km north-east of Nairobi.

Gazetted: the National Park was gazetted in December 1949 and the National Reserve in July 2000.

Climate: Mount Kenya’s weather is notoriously unpredictable and varies with altitude. At points over 4,000 m the mountain is usually freezing cold, misty and windy.  During sunshine, daytime temperatures may rise to over 15˚C (over 4,000 m) and during periods of cloud cover they may drop to nearly 0˚C. Nocturnal temperatures habitually drop to around -10˚C. Prevailing winds are from the south and east, so the southern and eastern flanks of the mountain receive the highest rainfall (up to 2,500 mm pa at about 3,000 m). The northern slopes receive the lowest rainfall (1,000 mm pa) while over 4,500 m rainfall decreases to around 700 mm pa.

Vegetation: alpine and sub-alpine flora with montane and bamboo forest, moorland and tundra. 

Wildlife: includes; giant forest hog, tree hyrax, white-tailed mongoose, elephant, black rhino, suni, black-fronted duiker, bongo, leopard, Mount Kenya mouse shrew, hyrax, duiker and the endemic mole-rat. 

Birds: 130 recorded species.

Overview

One of the world’s highest National Parks, Mount Kenya is an extinct volcano some three and a half million years old. Straddling the equator, the mountain offers a unique mosaic of forest, moorland, rock and ice and is crowned by the glittering twin peaks of Batian (5,199 m) and Nelion (5,188 m). The sacred home of Ngai, God of the Kikuyu people, Mount Kenya is Kenya’s highest mountain, a national icon, a climbers’ Mecca, the nation’s namesake, a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site and a wildlife stronghold.   

About the mountain

Like most of East Africa’s mountains, Mount Kenya is an extinct volcano with a massive volcanic cone, circular in shape and around 70 km in diameter. Born between 2.6 and 3.1 million years ago, it formed as successive layers of volcanic lava erupted with massive force from a central vent, which had burst open in the earth’s surface. 

Rising a majestic 5,000 m above its 800 m high surrounding plains, Mount Kenya is the second highest mountain in Africa (after Mount Kilimanjaro’s 5, 896 m). Experts believe, however, that at its birth it may have been 1,000 m higher, which would have made it Africa’s highest mountain. Considered the perfect example of an equatorial mountain, though it straddles the equator, Mount Kenya is permanently crowned in ice. A number of glaciers extend from the peaks, the largest being the Lewis Glacier, which lies along the route from Teleki Valley to Point Lenana via the Austrian Hut. 

Namesake of a nation

To the indigenous people who lived in central Kenya for thousands of years, Mount Kenya had various names. The Kikuyu, who make up the bulk of Kenya’s modern day population, called the mountain Kirinyaga, which roughly translated means, the ‘white’ or ‘bright’ mountain. The Embu people, meanwhile, called the mountain Kirenia (the mountain of whiteness), and the Maasai called it both Ol Donyo Eibor (the white mountain) and Ol Donyo Egere (the speckled mountain). 

Anthropologists and linguists believe that the modern name ‘Kenya’ comes from the Akamba people, who called the mountain Kiinyaa, the ‘Mountain of the Ostrich’, because in their opinion the dark rock and speckled ice fields looked like the tail feathers of the male ostrich. The peaks of Batian, Nelion and Point Lenana were all named by Sir Halford Mackinder (who made the first recorded conquest of the mountain) in memory of three legendary Maasai laibons or medicine men, all of whom were renowned for their wisdom and bravery.