Our first climbing in Kenya was at Ndeiya. We have yet to find anyone else who has climbed at this crag but it sounded promising in the International Mountain guide to East Africa. A steep walk in led us to Morning Shade (the first route we came to) and was quite enjoyable. The only problem was the ropes jamming after the abseil but we were back at Nelly before darkness.

Next Tuesday we made our way to a meeting of the Mountain Club of Kenya, their clubhouse is at Wilson airport and they meet every Tuesday from 8pm, take your rock boots. There, we were filled with enthusiasm for climbing and sold guidebooks to Lukenya and Frog.

Our next outing was to Lukenya where we did Golden Anniversary, again the first route we located at the crag. This is a great route but definitely felt under-graded at VS, the traverse at ¾ height has to be one of the best traverses at that grade anywhere

Next crag was Frog, the premiere (read only) sport climbing crag in Kenya. The approach to bolting is a bit sketchy but a good crag none the less. We did some excellent routes here with Lie of the Mind being the most memorable also World Gone Wrong, Trader Horn, Naked Edge, Flight of Fancy and Calling Elvis (in no particular order).

The next crag we visited was Fischer’s tower in Hell’s Gate NP. A tall spire of rock is surrounded by rock hyraxes, guinea pig like creatures, in a beautiful setting. We did a couple of routes here, not sure of the exact names but fun none the less, and descents aided by the staples at the top.

And then the Maxi Dash. We didn’t finish but had a great day out despite the puncture. The idea of the competition is to get as many points as possible by climbing as many routes as possible at as many crags as possible. The winners managed 12 routes at three crags; we almost managed 6 at three crags but only completed 5 at two crags before darkness fell. Bar-b-q and drinking ensued.