Aberdare National Park

The air changes first. As the road climbs out of Nyeri, the warm red dust of the farmland gives way to a cool, damp breath that smells of moss, wet earth and wood smoke. Mist drifts low across the track. Somewhere in the trees, a colobus monkey calls with a deep, rattling croak. Welcome to the Aberdares, a range of high, green mountains in the heart of Kenya.

Local Kikuyu communities have long called these mountains Nyandarua. The name is usually explained as a reference to a drying hide, because the long, folded ridgeline looks like an animal skin stretched out in the sun. The English name came later. In 1884, the Scottish explorer Joseph Thomson passed this way. He named the range after Lord Aberdare, who was then president of the Royal Geographical Society in London.

The national park itself was established in 1950. It protects two very different worlds. The first is the high moorland, a cold, open plateau of tussock grass, heather and fast streams. The second is the Salient, a lower tongue of thick forest that runs east toward Nyeri. Many visitors only see one of these. If you have time, try to see both. They feel like two separate countries.

As you climb, the vegetation changes in clear bands. Lower down, there is mixed forest with tall cedar and podo trees, their trunks wrapped in hanging lichen. Higher up comes the bamboo, a dense wall of green stems that creak and knock together in the wind. Above the bamboo, the trees thin out. The land opens into moorland, and the sky suddenly feels very close.

Up here, the plants look strange to most visitors. Giant lobelias rise like grey-green candles from the grass. Giant groundsels stand on thick, shaggy trunks, with rosettes of leaves at the top. These plants have adapted to a hard life — bright sun by day and frost at night, sometimes in the same twenty-four hours. Plants like these grow on only a few high East African mountains, and nowhere else on Earth.

Now listen for water. The Aberdares are one of Kenya's most important water towers. Rain and mist fall on these slopes for much of the year. The water collects in bogs and streams, then runs down to feed the Tana River and several dams. A large share of the water that comes out of the taps in Nairobi starts its journey here. So when you feel the mist on your face, you are feeling part of a capital city's water supply.

That water also falls. The park has several impressive waterfalls. Karuru Falls drops in long stages into a deep, forested gorge, and it is counted among the tallest waterfalls in Kenya. Gura Falls and Chania Falls are also worth finding. On a clear day, you hear the falls before you see them. The sound is a low, steady roar that rises out of the valley below the viewpoints.

The forest also holds a famous royal story. In the Salient, wildlife lodges were built on stilts and among trees, so guests could watch animals at night by a floodlit waterhole. The best known is Treetops. In February 1952, Princess Elizabeth was staying there when her father, King George the Sixth, died in England. She arrived in the forest as a princess and left as Queen. The line is still repeated by guides across Kenya.

The Aberdares carry a harder history too. During the 1950s, these forests were a main base for the Mau Mau fighters, who resisted British colonial rule. Their best-known leader, Dedan Kimathi, moved through these mountains for years. He was captured near Nyeri in 1956 and later executed. The original Treetops building was burned during that conflict and was rebuilt nearby. Today, many Kenyans see these forests as a place of courage and memory, not only of wildlife.

Now, the animals. The park is home to elephants, buffalo, waterbuck, bushbuck and both olive baboons and black-and-white colobus monkeys. It also protects rare creatures that most visitors never see. The mountain bongo, a shy forest antelope with a chestnut coat and thin white stripes, survives here in small numbers. The giant forest hog moves through the undergrowth at dusk. And the Aberdares are well known for sightings of black, or melanistic, leopards and servals — cats with dark coats instead of spots.

One surprising detail sits at the edge of the park. Much of the Aberdare forest is surrounded by a long electric fence, hundreds of kilometres in total, built with support from a conservation charity called Rhino Ark. The fence was finished in the late 2000s. It keeps elephants out of farms, and it keeps poachers and illegal loggers out of the forest. It is one of the longest conservation fences in Africa, and it changed life for many farming families on the park boundary.

The town of Nyeri, below the mountains, has its own link to this landscape. Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scout movement, spent his last years in Nyeri and is buried there. He had a small cottage in the grounds of the Outspan Hotel, with a view toward the Aberdares and Mount Kenya. Scouts from around the world still travel to visit his grave, a short drive from the park gates.

A few practical thoughts as you explore. Weather here changes fast, and the moorland can be cold even near the equator. Roads become slippery and deep with mud after rain, so a four-wheel-drive vehicle is the sensible choice. Stay with your car unless you are at a marked viewpoint or with a ranger. Elephants and buffalo in thick forest can appear very suddenly, and they are not as calm as their cousins on the open plains.

Before you leave, stop for a moment and look around you. Notice the colour of the light through the mist, the drip of water from the leaves, the smell of cold earth. Turn east, and on a clear morning you may see the white peaks of Mount Kenya across the valley. These mountains feed rivers, hide rare animals and keep difficult memories. As you drive back down toward Nyeri, watch the air grow warmer — and listen for one last call from the trees.