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W. EUROPE & N. ATLANTIC MAP MIDDLE EAST & CENTRAL ASIA MAP AFRICA MAP Pico del Teide Jebel Toubkal Jebel Siroua Mount Cameroon Mount Stanley Karisimbi Mount Elgon Mount Kenya Mount Meru Kilimanjaro |
 | Mount Kenya massif from NW; peaks left to right are Tereri, Pt. Lenana (with snow on it), Nelion, Batian, Pt. Pigott (photo by John Cleare) |
Mount Kenya
17058 ft (5199 m) Highest point in Kenya . |
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| Major Peaks: |
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| Location: | Central Kenya, 110 miles (175 km) N of Nairobi | ||||
| Lat / Long: | 0.1° S, 37.3° E | ||||
| Volcanic Type: | Dissected stratovolcano | ||||
| Volcanic Status: | Extinct | ||||
| First Ascent: | Batian: H. J. MacKinder, C. Ollier, and J. Brocherel, 1899 Nelion: E. E. Shipton and P. Wyn Harris, 1929 | ||||
| First Ski Descent: | |||||
| Skiable Vertical: | up to 2000 ft (600 m) | ||||
| Mount Kenya is the second highest mountain in Africa, another of the great isolated stratovolcanoes which dominate the horizons from the plains of East Africa. Mount Kenya may once have been higher than Kilimanjaro, although claims made in certain sources that it once reached 25000+ feet (7600+ m) are surely exaggerated. Eruptive activity ceased over 2.5 million years ago, and since then glacial erosion has eradicated all traces of the summit crater or caldera and removed much of the mass from the upper slopes of the mountain. The current summit region is a series of sharp ridges interspersed with glaciers which surround the twin summits, the rock towers of Batian and Nelion, separated a gap known as the Gate of the Mists. Like all glaciers in Africa, those on Mount Kenya are in retreat, and seven of the 18 glaciers which were first named in the 19th century have since disappeared entirely. During the Ice Ages large glaciers reached down below 10000 ft (3000 m) elevation, but the terminus of the Lewis Glacier (the largest current glacier) now reaches only to 15000 ft (4600 m). The glaciers of Mount Kenya have been skied and snowboarded numerous times, including an extreme descent from the Gate of the Mists down the Diamond Glacier, which is normally considered the finest ice climb on the mountain. | |||
