“No Picnic on Mount Kenya” was an exciting and unique take
on a mountain climbing adventure. With the ultimate goal of climbing the 17,000
ft Mount Kenya (the second tallest mountain in Africa), Benuzzi and his
companions first had to escape from the POW camp where they were held captive.
What makes this story even more unique is that these men planned from the very
beginning to return to their prison camp after their attempt on the mountain.
They had many reasons for this, and I won’t list them here, but their chief motivation
was to escape the monotony of camp life. They had no hopes of escaping and
making it away safely, but since they had to wait in prison they wanted
something to help them pass the time.
So they began preparing a mountain climbing expedition in
complete secret while in the confines of a POW camp. They had to collect
everything they could save by way of food and supplies over a period of eight
months, while at the same time using scrap metal to manufacture much of their
gear, including ice axes and crampons. These men endeavored to climb a world
class peak using ropes that were intended to secure their bed sheets to their
bunks. Now that’s what I call chutzpah!
After a clever escape from camp and a treacherous crossing of
occupied territory, the group of travelers found themselves in the heart of an
African jungle. This was big game territory with wild rhinos, elephants, lions,
leopards, etc. and all they had to defend themselves were two ice axes they had
converted from hammers. After several close calls with a rhino, a leopard, and
an elephant, they finally reached the base of the mountain and were able to
begin their ascent.
I won’t recount the whole story here… I just hoped to
illustrate how awesome this book really is. It’s a prison break, a jungle
safari, and a mountain climb all rolled into one. It was a lot of fun to read. That
being said, one of the things that made this book meaningful to me was the way
it captures the indomitable nature of man. Benuzzi and his companions were
prisoners of war, stuck in what is arguably one of the most demoralizing of all
human experiences. And yet, when they looked out the door of their bunk house each
morning, they could see the summit of Mount Kenya towering above them in the
clouds, and their spirits were drawn to it.
Benuzzi put it like this, “standing in the ranks at morning roll-call and seeing Batian [the
peak of Mount Kenya] beckoning me with
its shimmering glaciers, I sometimes felt like running away on the spot, to
seek and to meet adventure halfway.”
One of the things I found most humorous about this story was
the note that Benuzzi and his companions left when they escaped. They sent a
letter to their camp commander letting him know that they were escaping, but
that they would be back in fourteen days. I wonder what must have been going
through the commander’s head when he read that note! After their adventure, the
men snuck back in to camp and took a day to read their mail and get some food
in their systems before turning themselves in to the commander. They were
sentenced to twenty eight days in solitary confinement as punishment, but only
served seven days of their sentence because the commander “appreciated [their] sporting effort.” Sounds to me like a small
price to pay for such a life changing adventure!
My rating: 7 out of 10
