Couple on Mt Kenya hiking expedition yet to be found

View of Lenana Peak on Mount Kenya from Sirimon Gate. (Photo: Mkala Mwaghesha/Standard)

Search teams are yet to find a young couple that went missing during a climbing expedition to Mt Kenya last month.

The couple, identified as Dennis Kirimi, 22, and Yvonne Mwendwa, 21, went missing on September 30 shortly after they gained access into Mt Kenya National Park through Sirimon Gate.

Mountain climbing experts now say that the young couple's expedition was suicidal.

Sources said the duo arrived at the Old Moses Camp, which is perched 3,300m above sea level, using a taxi they had hired.

Old Moses Camp is situated at the end of the shrubs vegetation and near the moorlands of the mountain.

The two are said to have asked the driver to wait for them as they embarked on a day trip up the mountain.

They were not accompanied by a mountain guide.

But after waiting for hours, and as darkness set in, the taxi driver left.

According to Simon Gitau, a senior warden at the Mt Kenya National Park and the head of the mountain rescue team, the couple was spotted by a worker at Shipton's Camp as they approached a Kenya Meteorological Department station about 5km from Old Moses Camp.

"But when they saw the man approach, they turned towards the camp in what is being seen as a bid to avoid meeting him, and continued trekking up the mountain," he said.

Mobile network

Mr Gitau described the disappearance as mysterious, saying the two switched off their phones as soon as they arrived at the camp.

"The entire region around Sirimon Gate, Old Moses Camp and the Met station is well covered by mobile phone networks and we wonder how they could not be reached on their phones," he said.

The warden said Mwendwa, a student at Kirinyaga University, had also left a note behind saying the couple should not be looked for because they wanted to "go and live with their maker".

Since the disappearance, rescue teams and helicopters have been combing the mountain in vain.

The disappearance was reported at Timau and Kerugoya police stations.

Gitau said the authorities were in communication with the families of the missing couple as the search continues.

"We have searched all the track routes and the forest in vain but we will continue until we find them or their bodies," he said.

The disappearance comes a week after the mountain rescue team found four hikers who had gone missing in the Aberdare Ranges during a hiking expedition.

And two weeks ago, rescue teams tracked down and airlifted a French tourist who had strayed from the Mount Kenya hiking route.