Batian's View

Wow,

This place is a surprise. We drove through Naro Meru, a little village that looks like most I've seen in Kenya (which is to say almost identical to towns in TZ except with a greater number (or density) of ragged shops lining the street (don't think stripmall, think dilapidated buildings about to fall into a pile of dust, with store names written by hand or sometimes stenciled on their fronts)).

As we drove through this town, I really had low expectations for the place I was staying. We turned off the main route and onto a small dirt road, and I figured we were heading to a dump. Much to my surprise, though, the place we pulled into was nice! Really nice! Rustic log cabins, flowers, trees, etc. It feels like a B&B in Napa!

My room is in a cabin built for about ten people, but I'm the only occupant. The rest of the cabins are 1-4 ppl in size. There's a group of folks from around the globe (Japan, Australia, UK, US) doing volunteer work (making bricks right now, will move on to building a building at some point) who are staying in the smaller cabins.

My ankle feels better today. I slept with it raised about a foot up, with warm blankets over it. Swelling died down and pain is all gone. I wrapped it with an ace type bandage - I thought about immobilizing it with tape, but, well, then it would be completely immobile! So, bandage to support it and off we go!

This mountain is not a tourist destination like Kili. Sure, lots of people come (thousands summit the lower peak, Lenana, which involves at worst a class 3 scramble), but they're used to mountaineers here. The Diamond Couloir is supposed to be one of the best ice climbing routes in the world. There are literally dozens of famous routes up each of the dozens of sub-peaks here. Given all that, though, fewer than 100 people reach the summit of the highest peak, Batian, each year.

The point, anyway, is that as a climbers mountain, there is no enforced slowness. People who are climbing don't take a week to get to the climbs. We have some options, but to favor my ankle, we'll do a slow approach - Day 1 starts today around 11am and involves an hour or so. Day 2 will be a push up a couple thousand meters. And Day 3 will put us at the Top, or Austrian, Hut at almost 4800 meters. The faster way, were my ankle better, would be to drive the whole way up to camp 1 (the Met Station) and skip Day 1 entirely, easily possible with my already god acclimatization.) Day 4 will be rock climbing if the weather is good. Currently, there's a short noon storm every day, which we need to account for.

My technical guide, whom I'll meet at the Top Hut, is a member of the Mt Kenya Search and Rescue team. I guess I couldn't really ask for a better guide up the easiest route up the mountain. He will make the call, based on weather and experience and what he thinks of my climbing skills when we meet up, on whether we will shoot for the whole project in a single day or whether we will take sleeping gear with us. Taking it (which is slower) ensures 2 days. Not taking it makes a 1 day ascent and descent possible. It's 4-7 hours up, 3-4 hours for the traverse and back to get Batian (which includes a couple pitches up after crossing the top of the glacier - Peter is calling around to see how frozen the glacier is and if its rock hard, I'll rent boots from him so I can don crampons (seems likely given the -15C we're expecting up there... I have an ice axe waiting for me, too)), and an hour or two to rap down. 8-13 hours, but if the weather looks like we need to spend a couple hours waiting out some snow, then that becomes an instant 2-day trip.

Oh, I found out how one makes 20 anchors and still manages a 4 hour ascent - the anchor spots are always the same and there are well known anchor locations so that it's an arrive, place, belay action that takes someone familiar with the route no time at all...

On the way back, Day 5, we'll take the long, beautiful route out, as much to protect my ankle from the steep route as to let me see the prettier side of Mt Kenya. This will take 2 days as well...

So, that's the plan. There's buffer time in case we need to wait out the weather, etc. I have no idea when I'll have signal, so I'll have to let you know how things went maybe when I'm back, maybe as they happen...

Woohoo!

Joel, excited!