Mt. Longonot Hike with Hells Gate National Park

Mt. Longonot Hike with Hells Gate National Park

With an early start to your day we head to Mt. Longonot, an extinct volcano on the floor of the Great Rift Valley. Enroute we pass by the Rift Valley escarpment view point. The volcano is in the form of a crater, with a dense forest inside the crater and the rim of the crater providing a hiking trail that leads to the highest point of the mountain, about halfway across the rim from the starting point.  The views of the Rift Valley all the way to Lake Naivasha are to die for and very rewarding for braving the hike.

Once done with the hike, we do a few stretches before proceeding to Hell’s Gate, about 35 minutes’ drive away from Mt. Longonot. Hell’s Gate would be arguably one of the country’s most scenic outdoor playgrounds ever. It is the only park in Kenya that you are allowed to walk and cycle. Its greatest feat is the fact that it is an excellent visit both for the active guest as well as those who just want to enjoy an easy scenic game drive. For the actively inclined you can cycle through the park, hike the gorge and do rock climbing. If you are enjoying a game drive you expect to see among other animals Buffalo, Giraffe, Eland, Warthog, Zebra, Thomsons Gazelle, Impala and Baboons. The imposing cliffs as you drive along the main access to the park are the stuff of imagination for their grandiose nature and sheer unfiltered bitter.

A must do activity however is walking through the gorge with an option for 1 hour, 2 hours and 4 hours walk through. A 2-hour hike through is adequate for you to appreciate what would be termed as Kenya’s Grand Canyon. Going through this will help you understand why the park is named thus.

If not feeling particularly active on this day, we can head straight to the Kengen Geothermal Spa Pool within the Park for a moment of relaxation before embarking on our journey back to Nairobi. Picnic lunch in the park.