Mount Kenya (Meru: Kĩrĩmaara, Kikuyu: Kĩrĩmanyaga, or "Kīrī-nyaga", Kamba: Ki nyaa, Embu: Kĩ nyaga, or "Kirinyaga") is the second highest mountain in Africa and the namesake of the country Kenya. Located about 150 km (90 mi) north-northeast of the capital of Nairobi and just 16.5 kilometres (10.3 miles) south of the equator, the mountain's highest peaks are Batian (5,199 m), Nelion (5,188 m), and Point Lenana (4,985 m). Historically situated in the former Eastern and Central provinces, the massif now serves as the intersection of Meru, Embu, Kirinyaga, Nyeri, and Tharaka Nithi counties. The area was officially gazetted as the Mount Kenya National Park in 1949 and was later designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997 for its outstanding natural beauty and ecological significance. Today, the park and its surrounding forest reserve are managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Kenya Forest Service as a critical sanctuary for endangered species and a primary water tower for the region.
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. The park receives over 16,000 visitors per year.
Local culture The main ethnic groups living around Mount Kenya are Kikuyu, Ameru, Embu and Maasai. The mountain is as an important aspect of their cultures. They arrived in the Mount Kenya area and have been living there for centuries.
Kikuyu The Kikuyu people 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 the 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 doors facing the mountain. The Kikuyu name for Mount Kenya is Kirima Kĩrĩ Nyaga (Mt. Kirinyaga), which literally translates to the mountain that 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 dark feathers and a white tail– when the bird bends its head to the ground with its tail in the air, its body forms a triangular shape with a white peak, closely resembling the snow-capped mountain of Kĩrĩnyaga. The name Kĩrĩnyaga therefore figuratively means 'the one with white tails', 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 Johann Ludwig Krapf was given when he sighted the mountain from Kitui (in Kamba county). 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, Murungu or Mwene Njeru).The Embu name for Mount Kenya is Kĩ nyaga, which, similar to the Kikuyu, means 'the one with the ostrich'. The mountain is sacred, and they build their houses with the doors facing toward it. The Embu people are closely related to the Ameru and Kikuyu 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 Kirimaara, 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:God bless our children, let them be like the olive tree of Morintat, let them grow and expand, let them be like Ngong Hills like Mt. Kenya, like Mt. Kilimanjaro and multiply in number.— Collected by Francis Sakuda of Oloshoibor Peace Museum
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, preserving an area of great scenic beauty, conserving the biodiversity within the park, and preserving the water catchment for the surrounding area.
Kenya's government has announced a project to discourage animals from straying into small holdings surrounding the national park and devastating crops, which will see the national park enclosed by an electric fence with five electrified strands. Kenya's Rhino Ark Trust, a non-profit organization, has been putting up fences in key areas around the country. As of 2021, 250 kilometres (160 miles) out of a planned 450 kilometres (280 miles) have been constructed in the Mt. Kenya area. The fence discharges an electric shock, but is not dangerous to humans or animals.
Geology
Mount Kenya is a stratovolcano that was active in the Plio-Pleistocene. The original crater was probably over high; and potentially up to high, making the prehistoric Mount Kenya higher than present-day 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, John Walter 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 mountain's lower slopes, which have never been glaciated, are currently dominated by a mix of cultivation and forest, and are characterized by deep, fluvial V-shaped valleys with numerous branching tributaries. In contrast, the higher elevations of the moorland zone feature shallower, flat-bottomed U-shaped valleys carved by ancient glacial activity. This stark topographical shift marks the transition from landscapes shaped by millions of years of river erosion to those sculpted by the movement of prehistoric ice sheets.
When Mount Kenya was active there was some satellite activity. The northeastern 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 Sámuel Teleki and Ludwig 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 volcanic origin. The majority of the peaks are located near the centre of the mountain which 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, lichens, and small alpine plants growing in rock crevices. Further away from the central peaks, the volcanic plugs are covered in volcanic ash 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 .
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.
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 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 in 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 changes in temperature trends, or by a 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. A 2024 study showed that only 10% of the surface-area of the 1980s remained; 6,9 ha, about half as much as in 2016.
Periglacial landforms