Mount Kenya National Park / Natural Forest protects the afro-alpine region surrounding Mount Kenya, the second-highest mountain in Africa at 5,199 m.
The mountain is an extinct volcano with 12 remnant glaciers on its slopes, which are retreating rapidly. Also, there are several small lakes and it is the main water catchment area for two large rivers in Kenya; the Tana and the Ewaso Ng'iso North. The site also comprises the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and Ngare Ndare Forest Reserve in the foothills, which are within the African elephant migration route.
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Mount Kenya National Park / Natural Forest (ID: 800)
The Darwin Glacier was named by the geologist John Walter Gregory - the first person to reach the icefields of Mt Kenya in 1892/3.In his book "The Great Rift Valley" he describes that this "was so named as we owe to Darwin the first precise description of a glacial valley in England"
Gray Leakey, a cousin of Louis Leakey, was taken captive and led into the forests of Mount Kenya, high up on the mountain, where "he was buried alive and upside down in deep red soil" (during the Mau Mau insurgency 1952-1960)
"On July 19, 2003, a South African registered aircraft, carrying 12 passengers and two crew, crashed into Mount Kenya at Point Lenana: nobody survived"
"Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and Ngare Ndare Forest Reserve also lie within the traditional migration route of the African elephant population of the Mount Kenya – Somali/Maasai ecosystem and has always been the traditional dry season feeding area for elephants." (OUV)
2019: "fires have already destroyed more than 80,000 hectares of forest and grassland, which represents almost half the area of the World Heritage site"
Subsistence hunting is carried out in the forested lower slopes, and to a lesser extent at higher elevations where its impact is limited due to the extremely rugged terrain and difficulty of capturing prey species. The few remaining critically endangered mountain bongo antelopes are at high risk to subsistence hunting. The African elephant remain also at high risk due to
ivory poaching.
Mount Kenya is a stratovolcano that was active in the Plio-Pleistocene (wiki) / It is an ancient extinct volcano, which during its period of activity (3.1-2.6 million years ago) is thought to have risen to 6,500 m (AB ev)
The mountain was named by Krapf as both Kenia and Kegnia when he first sited it in 1849 apparently using a native word which he recorded (possibly Kikuyu Kirinyaga?). The colony in which it stands was originally known just as "British East Africa Protectorate" but the growing number of white settlers led to a change of status in 1920 when the "Kenya Colony" was created - named after the mountain. Because of their indiginous origins the names of both the mountian and the country were carried forward unaltered into the post colonial era.
There is a drought now all over Kenya, as the mini rainy season of Nov 2005 did not come. So the Masai bring their cattle and sheep up to the tourist area. This drove away the animals. The cows meanwhile are dying from the altitude and new germs which they have no resistence to. Seeing a lot of dead and dying cows being butchered was not fun.
