Lightning on Longonot

The weekend adventure brought us out to Mt. Longonot, a relatively young volcano in the Rift Valley near Lake Navaisha that last erupted about 150 years ago. With our long-term aspirations to hike Mt. Kenya (15,597 feet) and Mt. Kilimanjaro (17,688 feet), this is a good first exposure to some higher altitude. The hike is a steady climb straight up to the rim, where the narrow footpath, complete with sudden drops on both sides for added effect, takes you around the crater for about a 3km circuit. The peak tops off at about 8,300 feet, an abrupt ascent forcing you to clamber up volcanic ash that has been severely eroded in long, deep and twisting gouges from the rain. From the rim we were greeted with a fantastic view in all directions of the valley, with near bird’s-eye perspectives of ancillary craters, perfect circular lava pools and deep erosional gouges that radiate outward from the rim (to which its Maa name, Oloonong’ot, refers).

We were about an hour and a half into the climb, heading to the peak, when we heard thunder to the east. Completely exposed along the crater rim, we had few choices: to turn around and head down, which would take at least a good hour, or continue and hope that the storm would head south instead of west. Being the ambitious, or perhaps stupid, hikers that we are, we chose the latter option and decided to put the pedal to the metal. We circumnavigated the crater through a strong rain and thunder storm (yes, it passed directly over us), and were relatively lucky there was only one discernible flicker of lightning. Having started the hike hot and sweaty from the strong sun, we were cold and wet by the end. But it was a thrilling route around a near pristine crater with fumaroles every few hundred feet.