September 15-16: Mount Suswa

My last destination before heading to Nairobi was Mount Suswa Conservancy, located roughly 30 miles west of Nairobi and just south of Mount Longonot National Park on the map above (but not shown). The Mount Suswa Conservancy is entirely run by the Maasai community that lives inside the conservancy lands. Mount Suswa is a dormant shield volcano rising from the floor of the Great Rift Valley to a height of 7,730 ft. Note, shield volcanoes are the product of gentle effusive eruptions of highly fluid lavas that produce, over time, a broad, gently sloped “shield”, in contrast to the classic steep-sided, conical form of stratovolcanoes like Mount Longonot. Mount Suswa has a unique double crater formed by multiple eruptions and collapses with an expansive outer caldera and a moat-like inner crater surrounding a tilted block of rock.

The mountain is also known for its network of lava caves on the east side of the mountain and, interestingly, some of these caves are inhabited by olive baboons – yes, that’s right, baboons. The Maasai have named one of these caverns, the “Baboon Parliament”, which is the night time roost of a local troop of Olive baboons. The baboons enter the cave at twilight and roost high up on the cave walls (rather than their typical treetop roost) to escape from their greatest nocturnal predator – leopards. Apparently, the Mount Suswa caves are the only known place in the world where olive baboons roost in cave.

The caves also host huge numbers of threatened large-eared free-tailed bats.

I was joined at Mount Suswa by Mark and Kirsten and 6 of their coworker friends from the International School of Kenya. It was great to spend more time with Mark and Kirsten and fun to meet and interact with some of their teacher friends. Not surprisingly, given that Mark and Kirsten organized the expedition, we did not suffer from lack of good food and drink. In fact, we ate like royalty for the two days we were there. Most of us went caving in the system of lava tubes and caverns created during the last eruption, including a visit to the Baboon Parliament. On day two, most of us did a 4.5 hour hike out and back to the summit of Mount Suswa and for the siestas we engaged in intensive card games and board games. The latter, in particular, involved the men versus women in a game of cognative skills and, more importantly, concensus-building. Can you guess who won that game?! The women of course, because we, the men, spent most of our time arguing different opinions and debating every decision and usually had to go with the majority opinion. The women, in contrast, discussed the options and then quickly came to concensus on their decisions. More proof that women should be politicians.

OK, that’s pretty much it for Mount Suswa. Here is a short video of sunrise over the inner crater (very cool), the caldera from just above our campsite and from the peak of Mount Suswa, along with a brief excursion to the Baboon Parliament cave:

Mount Suswa composite video (8 minute)

Photo Gallery: