Early October 2012, A group of five US Marines and one Navy Corpsman arrives in Kenya for their Joint Training from Camp Lemonier in Djibouti.
Having come face to face with some of the continents harshest
and most extreme terrains, exhaustion and dehydration in Djibouti one of
Africa’s hottest and driest deserts.
They set foot for Kenya for their joint training which
involves hacking through the dense jungles and training in the semi-desert
badlands of Northern Kenya.
They are excited about the idea of climbing Mount Kenya, and
for some fortunate reason, they opt for the company that would give them the
nature of expedition they require.‘The Legionnaire’s’ Expedition, after
an extreme expedition done with two former French Legionnaires, which involved
trekking from the base of the mountain 2000m to point Lenana 4985m(16355 ft) and back in two days .
However; for this to happen, the marines have to get
permission from their United States Africa Command boss in Djibouti.
This is eventually
granted at the end of their training in Kenya and we set out for the expedition. Marine Sergeant Copping also makes plans to have his girlfriend (whom
he termed as 'athletic')fly in and do the expedition along with them.
As it would turn out, none of them had done a mountain before,
except for Engineer Curtis who had done a mountain in Colorado by car.
It was definitely going to be a formidable task!
In full mountain gear and 4800 Calories of MREs for each from the US Millitary Menu we set out.
We successfully complete the expedition in two days, and the hard trained soldiers all agree on one thing, they should have done the expedition as their first thing on their arrival in Kenya. It would have exposed them to the high altitude they needed for their training.
