Mt Kenya, Samburu

For the last week before a new school year starts, we took a week to visit Mt Kenya and Samburu National Parks in central Kenya.  A few pics are below, see "Mt Kenya more pics" and "Samburu more pics" for a full set of pictures from the week.

We started with a 5 day trek to get up and down Mt Kenya, at 16,355 feet (4935 meters), the highest mountain we've ever climbed.  We all made it to the top!

On the second day of our trek, we hike along the Gorges Valley, a beautiful cut in the side of the broad flank of Mt Kenya.  

Most of our trekking was in the afro-alpine zone, through tussock vegetation interspersed with various unique plants like Lobelia. Pt Lenana, our ultimate goal for the trip, is the peak on the left side of the picture.

We were in the clouds most of the 5 days, when the sun was out we enjoyed basking in the rocks while when the clouds came up it got pretty cold.

Two nights camped near an alpine tarn above 14,000 feet, this was probably the favorite campsite.

On summit day we're up and on the trail at 4 a.m.  It was a new moon, so amazing stars to watch but no light except our lanterns to guide the way.

At sunrise nearing the summit, very cold but it warmed up once the sun came up.

The summit was Point Lenana, actually slightly lower than the highest peak of Mt Kenya shown in this panorama.  Batian, the highest peak at around 5200 meters, takes technical rock climbing skills, so not for us!

After 5 days on the mountain, we headed north to Samburu, Buffalo Springs, and Shaba National Reserves.  They're off the northern end of the central highlands, and good places to see landscape, plants and animals representative of the dry northern part of Kenya.

A highlight was an excellent view of a leopard, who walked right in front of our truck.

And another highlight was our first sighting of cheetahs, a mother with 3 cubs who had just killed a gerenuk.  Add to that a sighting of a genet (a small nocturnal African cat) that hung around our campsite, and we did quite well finding cats in Samburu.

Vullturine Guineafowl - despite the name which sounds unappealing, quite stunning birds with their rich iridescent blue feathers and interesting flock behaviors.  The area was spectacular for birds, and these were one of our favorites..

Large mammals are great to watch, but we loved finding the more obscure ones also.  We found a family of Somali Mongooses living in an old termite mound.

Gerenuks, iconic antelope of the region who have the unique ability to stand on their hind legs and reach their long necks up into the bushes to browse.

Nice campsite along the Ewaso Ngiro river, where we could sit and watch wildlife.  The two downsides were a constant gale of wind blowing sand off the river (hence the duct tape sealing one tent to keep sand out of the inside!), and the uber-cheeky monkeys who took the slightest opportunity to steal food (requiring us to hire a local guy to guard the tents whenever we went for game drives).

Grevy's Zebra are an uncommon zebra species that is doing well in Samburu.  They have more fine striping than "normal" zebras. We enjoyed the assemblage of African animals that were not present in other parks we've visited thusfar.