Today we woke up extra early (7:00am!) to climb Mount Longonot, a dormant volcano. It was a strenuous hike climbing up 1,500 feet on a straight incline. We split into several groups to go at different paces, and our two drivers hiked with us (shoutout to Ken and John). My group (April) started to set landmark goals where we would rest after passing certain trees or rocks. We obviously went very slowly. Melanie’s group were the speed demons and made it up the mountain first and were the first to hike the rim and come down. Melanie was actually the first person to set foot at the rim. She screamed with joy at the sight of the Lord’s creation, the crater. It just hits you out of nowhere when you reach the top. 

The whole team can agree that the hardest part was hiking the rim, about 4.5 miles around. It was filled with lots of steep rocky inclines and dangerous slopes that some of us resorted to sliding on our butts instead of walking down. The whole thing was a lot like rock climbing, and as we were going through, the rock formations resembled the Grand Canyon. Everywhere we looked we could see the crater covered in trees, and in the distance were various towns in the Rift Valley that we could recognize from our past 2 weeks. At the highest point, we were at 9,100 feet above sea level. We like to blame the altitude for how out of breath we were. 

As Melanie’s group was hiking, they met a woman who was climbing Mount Longonot as practice for Mount Kilimanjaro, where she would hike for 8 hours for 8 days. That’s real dedication. It took around 3 hours to go around the rim, and overall the hike was about 5 hours. One group saw several zebras as they went down. 

We are thankful for our safety (mostly). Some of us got some scrapes and bruises, such as Peyton who fell as she was walking down. Caroline was attacked by an enormous bee and had to balance herself so she wouldn’t fall off the mountain as she tried to escape it. We all agree that it was an exciting and exhilarating experience. I (April) even cried when I returned to the bottom because I was so happy to be done walking and to eat a sandwich. 

This whole trip, we would point out Mount Longonot in the distance and say, “That is the volcano we are going to climb.” Now we can say with confidence, “That is the mountain that the Lord helped us conquer.”