Mount Kenya

Mount Kenya (Kikuyu: ''Kĩrĩnyaga'', Kamba, ''Ki Nyaa'') is the highest mountain in Kenya and the second-highest in Africa, after Kilimanjaro. The highest peaks of the mountain are Batian (), Nelion () and Point Lenana (). Mount Kenya is located in the former Eastern and Central provinces of Kenya; its peak is now the intersection of Meru, Embu, Laikipia, Kirinyaga, Nyeri and Tharaka Nithi counties, about south of the equator, around north-northeast of the capital Nairobi. Mount Kenya is the source of the name of the Republic of Kenya.

Mount Kenya is a volcano created approximately 3 million years after the opening of the East African Rift. Before glaciation, it was high. It was covered by an ice cap for thousands of years. This has resulted in very eroded slopes and numerous valleys radiating from the peak. There are currently 11 small glaciers, which are shrinking rapidly, and may disappear by 2050. The forested slopes are an important source of water for much of Kenya.

There are several vegetation bands from the base to the peak.
The lower slopes are covered by different types of forest. Many alpine species are endemic to Mount Kenya, such as the giant lobelias and senecios and a local subspecies of rock hyrax. An area of around the centre of the mountain was designated a National Park and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The park receives over 16,000 visitors per year.

Mount Kenya National Park

Mount Kenya National Park, established in 1949, protects the region surrounding the mountain. Currently the national park is within the forest reserve which encircles it. In April 1978 the area was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The national park and the forest reserve, combined, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

The Government of Kenya had four reasons for creating a national park on and around Mount Kenya. These were the importance of tourism for the local and national economies, preserve an area of great scenic beauty, conserve the biodiversity within the park and to preserve the water catchment for the surrounding area.

Kenya's government has announced a project to discourage animals from straying into small holdings surrounding the Park and devastating crops. The project will see the Park enclosed by an electric fence with five electrified strands. Kenya'
Rhino Ark Trust
a non-profit organization, has been putting up fences in key areas around the country. As of 2021, 250 kilometres out of a planned 450 kilometres has been constructed in the Mt. Kenya area. The fence discharges an electric shock, but is not dangerous to humans or animals.

Local culture

The main ethnic groups living around Mount Kenya are Kikuyu, Ameru, Embu and Maasai. The first three are closely related. They all see the mountain as an important aspect of their cultures. All these cultures arrived in the Mount Kenya area in the last several hundred years.

Kikuyu

The Kikuyu live on the southern and western sides of the mountain. They are agriculturalists, and make use of the highly fertile volcanic soil on the lower slopes. They believe that God, ''Ngai'' or ''Mwene Nyaga'', lived on Mount Kenya when he came down from the sky. They believe that the mountain is Ngai's throne on earth. It is the place where Gĩkũyũ, the father of the tribe, used to meet with God. Thus according to the Kikuyu records, Gĩkũyũ is the first person on Earth to ascend the mountain. 'Mwene Nyaga' in Kikuyu language can also translate as the "Owner of the Ostriches" or "Owner of the white patches (of snow)" where 'Mwene' translates to 'owner', and 'Nyaga' to Ostriches or white patches. The snow (in Kikuyu: Ira) caps of the mountain symbolically represent a crown on God's habitation .
Kikuyu used to build their houses with the doors facing the mountain. The Kikuyu name for Mount Kenya is ''Kirima Kĩrĩ Nyaga'' (Mt.Kirinyaga), which literally translates to the mountain that which has the "Nyaga" – Ostriches.The mountain therefore is locally accepted as 'God's Resting Place' or 'Where God Lives'.

The Kikuyu name for Mt. Kenya is ''Kĩrĩnyaga'' which literally means ‘the one with the ostrich’. The ostrich has black or brownish–grey feathers with patches of white. The Kikuyu attributed an ostrich likeness to an object that was dark coloured with white patches. The name ''Kĩrĩnyaga'' therefore figuratively means ‘the one with white patches’, referring to the glaciers among the peaks of the mountain.

Translated to the Kamba language, ''kĩrĩnyaga,'' would be ''ki nyaa''. This is the name that Ludwig Kraph was given when he sighted the mountain from Kitui (in Kamba country). He recorded it as Kenya. It became the name of not only the mountain but also the country.

Embu

The Embu people live to the south-east of Mount Kenya, and believe that the mountain is God's home (the Embu word for God is ''Ngai'' or ''Mwene Njeru''). The mountain is sacred, and they build their houses with the doors facing towards it. The Embu people are closely related to the Ameru and Mbeere people. The Mbeere and Akamba are the settlers of the southeast side of the mountain.

Ameru

The Ameru occupy the east, north and north-western slopes of the mountain. They are generally agricultural and also keep livestock and occupy what is among the most fertile land in Kenya. The Meru god ''Murungu'' was from the skies. Their name for Mt. Kenya is ''Kirimara'', which means 'mountain with white features'.

Maasai

The Maasai are semi-nomadic people, who use the land to the north of the mountain to graze their cattle. They believe that their ancestors came down from the mountain at the beginning of time. The Maasai name for Mount Kenya is ''Ol Donyo Keri'', which means 'mountain of stripes', referring to the dark shades as observed from the surrounding plains. At least one Maasai prayer refers to Mount Kenya:

Geology

Mount Kenya is a stratovolcano that was active in the Plio-Pleistocene. The original crater was probably over high; higher than Kilimanjaro. Since it became extinct there have been two major periods of glaciation, which are shown by two main rings of moraines below the glaciers. The lowest moraine is found at around . Today the glaciers reach no lower than . After studying the moraines, Gregory put forward the theory that at one time the whole summit of the mountain was covered with an ice cap, and it was this that eroded the peaks to how they are today.

The lower slopes of the mountain have never been glaciated. They are now mainly cultivated and forested. They are distinguished by steep-sided V-shaped valleys with many tributaries. Higher up the mountain, in the area that is now moorland, the valleys become U-shaped and shallower with flatter bottoms. These were created by glaciation.

When Mount Kenya was active there was some satellite activity. The north-eastern side of the mountain has many old volcanic plugs and craters. The largest of these, Ithanguni, even had its own ice cap when the main peaks were covered in ice. This can be seen by the smoothed summit of the peak. Circular hills with steep sides are also frequent in this area, which are probably the remains of small plugged vents. However, as the remaining mountain is roughly symmetrical, most of the activity must have occurred at the central plug.

The rocks that form Mount Kenya are mainly basalts, rhomb porphyrites, phonolites, kenytes and trachytes. Kenyte was first reported by Gregory in 1900 following his study of the geology of Mount Kenya.

The geology of the Mount Kenya area was first described scientifically by Joseph Thomson in 1883. He saw the mountain from the nearby Laikipia Plateau and wrote that it was an extinct volcano with the plug exposed. However, as he had only seen the mountain from a distance his description was not widely believed in Europe, particularly after 1887 when Teleki and von Höhnel ascended the mountain and described what they considered to be the crater.
In 1893 Gregory's expedition reached the Lewis Glacier at . He confirmed that the volcano was extinct and that there were glaciers present. The first thorough survey by Europeans was not undertaken until 1966.

Peaks

The peaks of Mount Kenya are almost all of a volcanic origin. The majority of the peaks are located near the centre of the mountain. These peaks have an Alpine appearance due to their craggy nature. Typically of Alpine terrain, the highest peaks and gendarmes occur at the intersection of ridges. The central peaks only have a few mosses, lichen and soils. The vegetation growing on these peaks is typical for their vegetation band.

The highest peaks are Batian (), Nelion () and Pt Lenana (). Batian and Nelion are within of each other, separated by the ''Gate of the Mists'' gap of . Coryndon Peak () is the next-highest, but unlike the previous peaks it does not form a part of the central plug.

Other peaks around the central plug include Pt Piggot (), Pt Dutton (), Pt John (), Pt John Minor (), Krapf Rognon (), Pt Peter (), Pt Slade () and Midget Peak (). All of these have a steep pyramidal form.

Significant craggy outlying peaks include Terere () and Sendeyo () which form a pair of twin peaks to the north of the main plug. Together, they form a large parasitic plug. Other notable peaks include The Hat (), Delamere Peak, Macmillan Peak and Rotundu.

File:Batian Nelion and pt Slade in the foreground Mt Kenya.JPG, Batian on the left, Nelion on the right, and Slade in the foreground
File:Pt_Lenana_Mt_Kenya.JPG, Lenana, the third highest peak, is the most ascended
File:Mount Kenya Lenana Nelion Batian.jpg, Mount Kenya, left to right: Point Lenana (4985m), Nelion summit (5188), Batian summit (5199m)
File:Krapf rognon and glacier after snowstorm.jpg, Krapf Rognon () and Krapf glacier
File:Hut_tarn_4500m_and_Midget_Peak_Mt_Kenya.JPG, Midget peak can be climbed in a day.
File:Terere and Sendeyo.jpg, Terere and Sendeyo are two craggy outlying peaks
File:Mugi_hill_and_giants_billards_table.jpg, Mugi hill and the Giant's Billiards Table offers some of the best hillwalking in Kenya.
File:Batian.jpg, Nelion from Batian in Dec 1974
File:Point john from top.jpg, Looking down the Diamond Glacier to Pt John

Glaciers

The glaciers on Mount Kenya are retreating rapidly. The Mountain Club of Kenya in Nairobi has photographs showing the mountain at the time of the first recorded ascent in 1899, and again more recently; the retreat of the glaciers is very evident.''Recession of Equatorial Glaciers. A Photo Documentation''
, Hastenrath, S., 2008, Sundog Publishing, Madison, WI, , 144 pp.
Descriptions of ascents of several of the peaks advise on the use of crampons, but this is true only in some cases and at higher elevations. Every year there is less new snow accumulating in winter than melting on summer, even on the Lewis Glacier (the largest of them) in winter, so there is no formation of new ice. It is predicted to be less than 30 years before there will no longer be ice on Mount Kenya. Glacial retreat and disappearance can be caused by change in temperature trends, or by change in precipitation trends.

The glacier names are (clockwise from the north):
* Northey, Krapf, Gregory, Lewis, Diamond, Darwin, Forel, Heim, Tyndall, Cesar, Josef.

The total area covered by glaciers on the mountain was recorded as about in the 1980s,

far less than that recorded by the first observations, made in the 1890s.

Periglacial landforms

Although Mount Kenya is on the equator the freezing nightly temperatures result in periglacial landforms. There is permafrost a few centimetres (inches) below the surface. Patterned ground is present at to the west of Mugi Hill. These mounds grow because the repeated freezing and thawing of the ground draws in more water. There are blockfields present around where the ground has cracked to form hexagons. Solifluction occurs when the night temperatures freeze the soil before it thaws again in the morning. This daily expansion and contraction of the soil prevents the establishment of vegetation.

Rivers

Mount Kenya is the main water catchment area for two large rivers in Kenya; the Tana, the largest river in Kenya, and the Ewaso Nyiro North. The Mount Kenya ecosystem provides water directly for over 2 million people. The rivers on Mount Kenya have been named after the villages on the slopes of the mountain that they flow close to. The Thuchi River is the district boundary between Tharaka Nithi and Embu. Mount Kenya is a major water tower for the Tana river which in 1988 supplied 80% of Kenya's electricity using a series of seven hydroelectric powerstations and dams.

The density of streams is very high, especially on the lower slopes which have never been glaciated. The ice cap which used to cover the mountain during the Pliocene

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