Welcome!

greenspun.com : LUSENET : MCK Virtual Clubhouse--Expedition Partners : One Thread

Welcome to the "Gear Exchange" room of the MCK Virtual Clubhouse! Use this space to to find partners for climbing Mt. Kenya or Kilimanjaro, or any other East Africa mountain. PLEASE send feedback to me--Jeff--at jeff@jeffspivack.com .

-- Jeff Spivack (jeff@jeffspivack.com), January 05, 2002

Answers

Jeff, thanks for the good website! But wouldn't it be useful to have a forum for (in addition ot exchanging gear and finding climbing partners) exhanging information and experiences as well (I mean, of places where others might want to go as well). Let me give here a couple of examples from my previous trips during the last one or two months: - When going to Aberdares the route via Naivasha seems to be OK now from the point of view of roads, but they don't issue temporary smartcards at the Mutubio gate. You will have to go all the way to Mweiga to get the card and then come back to the park. That's what happened to me in January 2002. Also, it is good to know that the road from Mweiga to Wanderis gate is not being used due to one bad section, but otherwise the roads were in excellent condition. - here is some info of Mt Elgon from December 2001: On the route from Kimilili to Kaberua and Chepkitale forest stations and further to Lower Elgon hut there is a huge tree fallen on the road 9 kms after Kaberua forest station. That means that you will have to start walking 20 kms earlier than you might anticipate from the book Mountains of Kenya. It is highly unlikely that that tree will be removed as that route had not been driven even until that tree by anyone for months, maybe for years (based on the growth of vegetation on the track). However, it is easy walking until Chepkitale forest station (abandoned apparently a long time ago), but when you start approaching the open moorlands the track becomes difficult to find, and at least we didn't find the Lower Elgon hut (if it is still there) and we navigated to Lower Elgon with compass. But although it seems that very few people go there it is excellent place for mountain walking. - In November 2001 we climbed Mt Silali. We took (an un-armed) turkana guide from the village of Kapedo. Kapedo and Silali are both at the border between turkanas and pokots, and raiding between the two has been going on for years and decades and centuries. We got to the top, but on our way down 9-10 heavily armed pokots came from the bush saying they had followed our footprints assuming we were on a spying mission to their villages (Silali is still on the turkana side). Our guide managed to calm them down by talking. After we had left they shooted a couple of times into the air. Shots were heard in Kapedo where they thought we had been ambushed, and the local councillor told us Silali should not be climbed without armed askaris. Well, my opinion is that if we had had armed turkanas and would have come across with armed pokots who knows what would have happened!

Jeff, do you think info like this would be of interest and create discussion?

-sakari-

-- Sakari Koivula (valdemarus@hotmail.com), January 15, 2002.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ