(Mt Longonot National Park is located 90km from Nairobi city on the floor of the Great Rift Valley. The mt Longonot national park is a popular park for hiking and mountain climbing that takes less than 3-4hrs to climb/hike up and down. It is one of the best adventure day trips from Nairobi. Longonot national park is easy to get to and has the best sightseeing opportunities and one can look inside the mountain crater. Nairobi- Great African Rift Valley- Mt Longonot Depart Nairobi with picnic lunch boxes for Mt Longonot National Park going through the Kikuyu lush green highlands and then on the eastern escarpment of the rift valley system.
You will make a scheduled brief stop at the view point on the side of the escarpment to enjoy the view of the Rift valley floor from a birds eye view. The rift valley system was formed 5 million years ago and the rift runs from the red sea through Ethiopia and Kenya and Tanzania. The rift valley is an active volcanic area and has some of the most interesting features including more than 8 lakes, dormant and active volcanic mountains and hotsprings and geysers like the Olkaria geothermal wells and Lake Bogoria geysers. You can actually see the volcanic Mt Suswa and Mt Longonot from this high place with their evergreen craters and the undulating green rift valley floor. The view from here is just amazing. Make sure to take as many photos from here as you can.
Drop into the rift valley and arrive at the Mt Longonot national park for your Hike up to the crater. The hike requires medium physical fitness and you will climb through the gulleys that dot the sides of this mountain. You will have a guide and you can make some rest stops at the designated places on the trek. You will get to the rim of the crater and look into the awesome crater below. If you have the strength for it, you can trek round the rim of the crater.
Picnic lunch will be at a convenient place then descend from the Longonot Mountain for the base at the park headquarters for onward return journey by road to Nairobi arriving in the evening to end your full day hiking excursion of Mt Longonot
