MT. ELGON EXPERIENCE:

Some times back, in 1993 while I was the company commander in charge of Mt Elgon National in western Kenya, the Uganda wildlife authority requested us to help transport radio masts across to their side of the mountain cause they bought them on our side of the boarder.

We engaged 30 local casuals and a section of 12 of my rangers to escort and guarantee security. The only transport we had was our old Isuzu truck inherited from the WCMD ( wildlife conservation management department ) which ran the old anti- poaching unit that presided the KWS. It's registration number was GK 460 l. We all trooped in to the truck and started the slow meander up the mountain towards the Koitobos peaks.

Took us more than five hours to get to the end of the small path we called a road, and unloaded the steel masts. There were six of them, thus five casuals each, and then we started the real climb on foot , through melting streams of frozen dew, past the magnificent peaks of Koitobos , then we went down treacherous valleys with steep rock walls and narrow slippery animal paths which were hard to maneuver with the three meter long masts.
It took us time to get to the bottom and to the Maji Moto corner which was the rendezvous point. We waited for two hours for our wildlife counterparts to appear but eventually we realized that they were not coming and that we had to get to our transport before night fall. One of the rangers suggested that we shoot in the air just to alert the Ugandans before we left, so we cracked some thunder flashes and started the climb back our domain. Every ranger was advised before the operation to carry a rifle sling and I did not ask why, but when we got to the mountain top, it was very cold that we could not hold our guns , and had to rub our hands together, stick them between any place in our bodies to look for warmth, and boy, I prayed that no crazy bandit or poacher would shoot at us, for I knew that I would not have touched the G3 rifle held by the sling on my shoulder, not even to save me.

We got to camp past midnight, and most of us were treated for frost bite the next day in Kitale and got sick leave for a week. The Ugandans wrote to us latter to inform us that they had send in a group to meet us, but they got scared by our number and the fact that it was the first time they saw KWS rangers in desert fatigues, and that we spoiled things more when we cracked the thunder flushes.

I was 31 years old that time.