Mount Longonot Hiking/ Trekking Day Trip Safari to the top of the Great Rift Valley will give you the chance to experience the freedom and awesome wildness of East Africa.
Mt Longonot is just less than 9100 feet above sea level with a tree filled interior and a lonesome steam vent to the northeast. A climb up Mount Longonot is an ideal day trip from either Nairobi or Naivasha. Best time to visit / travel is the months of January to April and from September to December.
Mount Longonot Day Trip hiking Safari departs daily from Nairobi after breakfast and the drive takes approximately an hour. You start the assent at 6000 feet. Like all good uphill hikes it will lull you in to a sense of false security with a slow gentle rise to the first peak.
This gives you a chance to get your lungs and limbs freed up for the second section, which is the most awesome. At the end of each section there is a rest point where you can prepare yourself for the next part of your journey.
You will have started early to avoid the heat of the Sun but by the time you reach the end of the second section you would have generated your own heat. This hike is not an easy hike but is achievable by people of average fitness. An indication of the fitness required is that most school of the age 14 and 15 take this climb while attending school in Nairobi.
Once you have finished the second section there is another rest bite of slightly less demanding terrain, before making the final climb on the fourth section. This again is a demanding section, though not as demanding as the second section.
As you heave yourself over the rim of the crater your reward is the awesome sight of Naivasha and the Great Rift Valley and you know that it was all worthwhile. Before making this climb you will need to acclimatize at 6000 feet. A ranger accompanies you on the hike.
He will act as a guide. As there are wild animals in the area he is armed. The whole tour is only about 8–9 km long but very steep, so that the round trip of park gate – Longonot Peak – park gate takes around 5 hours hiking. The gate is around 2150 metres and the peak at 2780 metres but following the jagged rim involves substantially more than the 630 metres vertical difference.