Mount Kenya is an imposing extinct volcano dominating the landscape of the Kenyan Highlands. The mountain has two main peaks – Batian 5,200metres) and Nelion (5,188 metres).
The mountains slopes are cloaked in forest, bamboo, scrub and moorland giving way on the high central peaks to rock, ice and snow. Mount Kenya is an important water catchment area, supplying the Tana and Northern Ewaso Nyiro systems. The park includes a variety of habitats ranging from higher forest, bamboo, alpine moorlands, glaciers, tarns and glacial morains.
The Park, which was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1997 and is also a Biosphere Reserve, covers 715 square km, and includes the peaks consisting of all the ground above 3,200 metres with two small salients extending lower down to 2,450 metres along the Sirimon and Naro Moru tracks. Surrounding the park is Mount Kenya National Reserve with an area of approximately 2,095 square km.
Major attractions - Pristine wilderness, lakes, tarns, glaciers and peaks of great beauty, geological variety, forest, mineral springs, rare and endangered species of animals, high altitude adapted plains game. Unique mountane and alpine vegetation with 11 species of endemic plants.
There are giant forest hog, tree hyrax, white-tailed mongoose, elephant, black rhino, suni, blackfronted duiker, mole- rat and over 130 species of bird