Mt Kenya’s glaciers ‘to disappear by 2030’

By Daisy Okiring

The Lewis Glacier, once a vast, gleaming sheet of ice draping the slopes of Mount Kenya, has shrunk to just two small blocks.

The largest of these is now only a few dozen meters wide, a stark reminder of the accelerating impact of climate change.

For Charles Kibaki Muchiri, a veteran mountain guide with 25 years of experience, the change is heartbreaking. As he traces a thin stream of meltwater across the glacier’s surface, he reflects on what has been lost.

“It was very beautiful,” he says with a mournful shake of his head. “There were ice caves, thick snow that lasted for months. Now, it’s almost gone.”

Scientists warn that the remaining ice on Mount Kenya—one of the last mountains in Africa with glaciers—could disappear entirely by 2030.

Mt Kenya’s vanishing ice

A study by Austria’s University of Innsbruck found that the Lewis Glacier lost 90% of its volume between 1934 and 2010. A more recent satellite analysis, published in Environmental Research: Climate, revealed that Mount Kenya’s glacier surface is now just 4.2% of what it was in 1900.

This rapid decline mirrors trends across Africa’s highest peaks, including Mount Kilimanjaro, which has lost 91.4% of its ice cover.

“The glaciers no longer receive enough snow to sustain themselves,” explains Rainer Prinz, a glaciologist from the University of Innsbruck. “Without a protective layer of fresh snow, the ice absorbs more heat and melts faster.”

Tourism and climbing at risk

Mount Kenya, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, attracts thousands of hikers each year. Alongside its unique wildlife—including elephants in the dense forests at its base—the mountain offers technical climbing routes that have relied on its icy surfaces.

But Muchiri and other local guides are witnessing these climbing routes disappear.

“We used to take climbers across the glacier. Now, they walk on bare rock,” says 28-year-old guide Godfrey Mwangi, pointing to a sheer cliff at Shiptons Camp (4,200m), once covered in ice.

While the mountain’s landscape remains breathtaking, Muchiri fears that without the allure of glaciers, visitor numbers will decline.

Impact on water and local communities

Although Mount Kenya’s glaciers were never large enough to serve as major water sources, their disappearance is affecting rivers that supply nearby villages with water.

“The glaciers used to contribute to the local ecosystem, even if only slightly,” says Alexandros Makarigakis, a hydrologist at UNESCO. “Now, their effect has almost vanished.”

Many local conservationists are planting trees around the mountain’s base, hoping to preserve what remains of its snow cover. But Makarigakis warns that these efforts may only delay the inevitable.

“Soon, there will be a generation that never associates Africa with glaciers,” he says.

As temperatures continue to rise, the fate of Mount Kenya’s glaciers seems sealed. Scientists and guides alike fear that within the next decade, all that will remain of the once-majestic ice sheets will be memories—and photographs.