No Picnic on Mount Kenya: Thoughts

“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