There are many benefits to an outdoor experience such as hiking but you also need a perfect environment to make it enjoyable. Mountains offer such environments and Kenya is blessed with enough of them.
I bet you didn’t know we have about 20 different mountains in the country. Some are well known while others will sound new to most but all in all they offer great places to go visit on weekends and holidays if you want to take some time on the road.
1. Mount Kenya
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Mount Kenya is the highest mountain in Kenya and the second-highest in Africa, after Kilimanjaro. The majority of the peaks involve rock climbing as the easiest route, although some only require a scramble or a walk. The highest peak that can be ascended without climbing is Point Lenana.
2. Mount Elgon
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Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya. It is the oldest and largest solitary volcano in East Africa. The mountain’s highest point, named “Wagagai”, is located entirely within the country of Uganda.
3.Mount Homa
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Mount Homa is a mountain located in western Kenya. It forms a broad peninsula on the southern shore of Winam Gulf, an extension of Lake Victoria. It is one of the very few carbonatite volcanoes in the world.
4. Mount Kinangop
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Mount Kinangop (or Ilkinangop) is a mountain in the southern Aberdare Range about 160 km north of Nairobi, Kenya. It is within the Aberdare National Park. A dormant volcano, Kinangop overlooks the Kinangop Plateau to the west and the Great Rift Valley beyond.
5. Mount Kipipiri
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Mount Kipipiri is an isolated volcano in the Wanjohi Valley, on the Kinangop Plateau near to the Aberdare Range. It is about 32 km northeast of Lake Naivasha, which is visible from the summit. Wildlife includes Colobus and Sykes monkeys, elephants and buffalo and abundant birdlife.
6. Mount Korosi
Korosi is a shield volcano mountain located in the Gregory Rift at the northern end of Lake Baringo. Unlike other rift valley volcanoes, it does not contain a summit caldera (cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption).
7. Mount Longonot
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Mount Longonot is a stratovolcano located southeast of Lake Naivasha in the Rift Valley. A forest of small trees covers the crater floor, and small steam vents are found spaced around the walls of the crater. The mountain is home to various species of wildlife, notably zebra, giraffe, buffalos and hartebeest.
8. Mount Marsabit
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Marsabit is a 6300 km² basaltic shield volcano in Kenya, located 170 km east of the center of the East African Rift, in Marsabit District near the town of Marsabit. The volcano is covered by dense forest with Marsabit National Park in the area.
9. Menengai
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Menengai Crater is a massive shield volcano with one of the biggest calderas in the world, located in the Rift Valley. It is located 10 km north of Nakuru.
10. Mount Mtelo
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Mount Mtelo (Sekerr) is the fifth highest ‘mountain’ in Kenya, after Mt Kenya, Mt Elgon, Aberdares and High Cheranganis, and is situated in the North West highlands of West Pokot County, approximately 120 km north of Kitale Town. It is a three-day hike to the top and back.
11. Namarunu
Namarunu is a shield volcano located in the Suguta Valley, a section of the Kenyan Rift Valley just south of Lake Turkana. It extends from the western side of the rift past the center. A few thousand years ago the Suguta was filled by a major lake, but now it is extremely dry and hot, with only the small Lake Logipi at the northern end.
12. Mount Ng’iro
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Mount Ng’iro is a mountain in the north of Kenya overlooking the Suguta Valley, part of the Rift Valley, to the west. The mountain is surrounded by desert, but is forested on its upper slopes. It lies in the territory of the Samburu people.
13. Ol Doinyo Eburru
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Ol Doinyo Eburru is an active complex of volcanoes in the Rift Valley, to the northwest of Lake Naivasha. It is being exploited for geothermal energy. Soysambu Conservancy is located to the north of the massif, between Lake Elmenteita to the east and Lake Nakuru to the west.
14. Ol Doinyo Orok
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The Ol Doinyo Orok mountain (maasai), also called Namanga Hills, is situated in southern Kenya next to the Tanzanian border in the Namanga Division. The Ol Doinyo Orok Mountain Forest Reserve is one of the few remaining patches in Kenya and it contains a large variety of plants, herbs and also several animal species not found in the surrounding semi-arid lowlands.
15. Ol Donyo Sabuk
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Ol Donyo Sabuk (in Kikuyu, Kilimambogo, Kilima Mbogo) is a mountain and an adjacent small town near Thika central Kenya. Near the peak is the grave of Lord Macmillan, his wife and their dog. Ol Donyo Sabuk National Park is a one-day trip out of Nairobi.
16. Olkaria
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The Olkaria Area is an region located immediately to the south of Lake Naivasha in the Rift Valley. It is geothermally active and is being used to generate growing quantities of clean electrical power. The geothermal complex and power plants lie within the Hell’s Gate National Park.
17. Paka
Paka is a shield volcano located in the Rift Valley. Geothermal activity is widespread at Paka.
18. Rotundu
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Rotundu is a flat, heavily forested peak on the side of Mount Kenya. The flat land on the peak also hosts Lake Rotundu. Some of the plants found on the peak are puzzling, as one would not expect to find them growing at that altitude.
19. Mount Satima
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Mount Satima, also known as Mount Lesatima and often abbreviated to Satima or Lesatima, is the third-highest mountain in Kenya and the highest in the Aberdare Range. The Maasai name is Oldoinyo Lesatima, which has a variety of alternative spellings, such as Ol Donyo Le Satima, and means “mountain of the bull calf”.
20. Suswa
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Suswa is a shield volcano in the Rift Valley and located between Narok and Nairobi. The mountain is also known for its lava tube caves on the northeast side of the outer crater. The peak can be reached on foot by following Rauch’s Trail, which begins approximately one-and-a-half kilometers from the summit, from the northeast.