It's a long shot, but sometime early next year I was hoping to find a partner to climb Mount Kenya. All the guiding services are very expensive (thousands of $'s), so I was hoping to go unguided.
If by chance anyone is interested, please let me know.
Hello.
We were in Kenya last may, didn´t go to Mt Kenya (or Kilimanjaro), out of price...
But we think Mount Kenya , the top, is only for experienced hikers, and it´s compulsory to have a guide.
If you just want to walk in the lower slopes, no problem. It´s a populated area, many villages and matatus. We did that in Kilimanjaro low slopes, no tourists and free.
You can read our experiences in our blog, useful informations.
Safe trip!
Guides are not compulsory. But you do have to be in a group of at least two people. Solo climbs are not allowed. And frankly climbing Mt Kenya without a guide or porter is a huge discourtesy to local people. Guides are not expensive. I'm not sure where the "thousands of dollars" notion comes from. A porter will set you back around $25/day, the price of a small round of drinks. So climb on your own, with one porter.
I'm not sure where the "thousands of dollars" notion comes from.
Perhaps you could point me to one that does not. I'd be more than willing to check into any options you are familiar with. I would prefer not to go with a guided group charging thousands of dollars, but after some more searching, I did find one local company which will do the climb for $1795, which is pretty reasonable, considering the technical difficulties of the climb. Most other sources quote a price a lot higher than that (there are actually few local companies that actually climb to the summit of Mt Kenya). Some of them want more than $7,000! I'd rather use a local guide/company anyway, when available.
So climb on your own, with one porter.
Yes, I was planning on hiring a porter to help carry ropes and technical gear to the base of the mountain. Perhaps he/she could also keep an eye on our gear and camp items while we were out on a climb.
I'm not sure if you are familiar with the climb or not, but most porters do not have the skills to climb Mount Kenya. It is a technical climb that requires 20 or more pitches on technical rock.
As far as climbing on my own, I'm not badass enough to climb solo up a 20 pitch high grade rock climb. I wouldn't want to subject a non-experienced porter to such dangers either. Although I was hoping to find a partner, I'd be willing to hire an experienced rock climber local guide.
PS, I agree with you about hiring porters and contributing to the local economy. I've always done so for climbs in Africa, Himalaya, and sometimes in the Andes.
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