TOWARDS MT. KENYA
March 2026 · Nairobi → Chogoria
I had been thinking about Mount Kenya for months before arriving in Africa.
Maps, photographs and old accounts had given me an idea of the mountain, but inevitably it remained an imagined place. On the flight I had been reading Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat, trying to understand a little more of the country I was entering: its history, independence, land and the complicated relationship between memory and place.
I wasn't looking for a complete understanding. If anything, travelling tends to reveal how little you know.
We arrived in Nairobi and met Paul, our guide for the expedition. A proud Kikuyu, he would be leading us across Mount Kenya over the days ahead.
There wasn't much hanging around.
Almost as quickly as we'd arrived, Nairobi began disappearing behind us and we were heading north towards the mountain.
THE ROAD NORTH
The city gradually loosened its grip. Buildings thinned, traffic eased and the landscape opened.
Somewhere ahead was Mount Kenya.
For years I had known it through images: Batian and Nelion rising sharply above the equator, glaciers clinging improbably to their upper slopes, and Point Lenana sitting at 4,985 metres.
Now we were simply driving towards it.
Paul talked as we travelled. About the mountain, the route and the country around us. I listened, watched through the window and tried to absorb what I could.
This period before an expedition has always interested me. You're moving towards somewhere you've thought about for a long time, but the imagined version hasn't quite been replaced by the real one.
Not yet.
LEARNING FROM THE MOUNTAIN
As we travelled, Paul began teaching us how to read the landscape. He pointed out artemisia, traditionally brewed locally as a bitter tea and used as an anti-malarial. He also told us of a Kikuyu tradition of giving newborn babies a taste of honey and bitter herbs: sweetness for the good in life, bitterness for the hardships.
FROM THE TRAIL - WATCH THE VIDEO
Mount Kenya, March 2026 · 1 min 30 sec
CHOGORIA
Our route would begin on the Chogoria side of Mount Kenya.
I had brought paints, sketchbooks and materials with me, intending to work throughout the expedition rather than simply photograph the landscape and reconstruct it later in the studio.
I didn't know what the paintings would look like.
That was rather the point.
Weather, altitude, vegetation, conversations, tiredness, mistakes and whatever happened along the trail would be allowed into them.
The mountain could come later.
First, we had to walk towards it.
