Captivating story that helped prepare me for my trip to Mt Kenya’s lowest peak

• Book: No Picnic on Mount Kenya
• Location: East Africa, Kenya
• Author: Felice Benuzzi

This book was a book I still remember reading even though I first read it in 1984 prior to my Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award Expedition in which in a group combined with some Kenyans from the Presidents Award of Kenya) we walked as far as the top of Point Lenana the smallest peak of Mt Kenya.
This story was fascinating preparation for that trip. It was made into a film called Ascent, which I haven’t seen yet but having just discovered there is one intend to. The descriptive detail in the book was very evocative and it greatly increased the overall enjoyment and the experience of our own trip as well as putting their trip into context. It is a story of some POW’s who break out from their camp in order to climb Mount Kenya and then break back into camp again. Anyone who has a background in hill walking or mountaineering will enjoy this book I believe, and it is based on a true story. It is a tribute to men’s inventiveness and turning adversity into opportunity. If desert island discs was desert island books this would be one of my choices as even in 2013 I still remember the excitement with which I read the book and the historical aspects of the story which happened before I was born.

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