Menengai Crater

About this activity

Walk the edges of Kenya’s largest caldera!! You are in Menengai. It is considered to be one of the largest volcano calderas in Africa, only surpassed by Ngorongoro crater, with a diameter of 12km at its widest and 8km at it’s narrowest.

The Menengai Caldera in Menengai Forest Station is a large shield volcano located in the Great Rift Valley, 10 km North of Nakuru town with an area of approximately 90 km2, a diameter of 12 km and depth of almost half a kilometre. It is one of the largest calderas in the world and the second most visited caldera in the world.

Route Description
We start the trek at the highest point on the rim of the caldera, the Viewpoint, at an altitude of 2278m above sea level. As you gain height while ascending the slope to the Menengai crater rim, a glance behind is rewarded with a fantastic distant view of the glimmering Lake Nakuru on the edge of Nakuru town. Once you get to the Menengai Viewpoint, the sweeping views of the expansive caldera are pretty impressive. Sadly, this panorama has lately been marred by newly drilled Geothermal wells, and a web of steam pipelines and earth roads crisscrossing the caldera floor. These are part of the infrastructure for a new Geothermal power plant built in Menengai to boost Kenya’s power production capacity. It seems the unrelenting march of technological advancement has little regard for natural beauty.
For the adventurous souls, we are hiking trail starting from the Viewpoint weaves its way steeply down to the caldera floor. A few Maasai herdsmen often drive their livestock to this desolate part of the volcano, otherwise,there are no settlements down there. Presumably, the local scary folklore keeps most people afraid of venturing into the bowels for this enormous and mysterious geological formation.
After a short flat section, the climb out of the caldera begins at the lion’s head cliff, and quickly evolves into a sharp ascent for a whopping 500m to the top. It will take you 6-7 hours, give or take some minutes, for the round trip back to the Viewpoint.