Rurimueria Upsweep: The Only Hill that Cheats

Rurimeria Day Hike is located at Geta Shopping Center, Nyandarua County, where the trail begins with a gentle dash before hitting a notoriously steep ascent to the first false summit. A false summit means that after the effort and time taken to complete a short distance that appears way longer, you are exhausted and convinced that this could be the summit. But no. Completing that summit becomes the start of another summit.

The journey to the first summit begins gently through a short vegetation cover that, once completed, the rest of the journey gets steep through a rocky region to the moorlands. Beautiful rock and landscape views start popping close to the first false summit, and you can’t help but immerse in the views. This is where it becomes easy to hand the closest hiker your phone to capture you. At the top of the first peak (they call it the “first pic”), the view of the second peak hits you, and at that breathtaking moment, you could be discouraged by the trail ahead.

The second peak is steep, though gentler than the first peak. There is a reduced difficulty as you go up. Up the second peak is another view, encouraging yet discouraging. You have to cover another peak to get to the moorlands, where difficulty ends, and altitude effects could become severe. At the moorlands, you are rejuvenated to complete since the summit is visible.

Two last stretches will test your will to summit. The second last one at the moorlands is gentler. The stretch to the tip of the peak is steep and gets challenging when descending. The reward is sitting atop 3860m after beating false peaks and a total of 7km to the summit of the third-highest peak in Aberdares.