The Aberdares retain an air of mystery and it would be easy to get lost amongst its thickly wooded hills, and mountains, the highest of which reaches to a lofty 14,000 feet (4,267 meters). The mountain air is rare and crisp and Aberdare Rainforest is a vital water catchments supplying the whole of Nairobi. Water cascades over spectacular waterfalls, and into rivers swimming with trout.

Aberdare National Park is famous for its tree-house hotels. Treetops and the Ark. With walkways accommodations raised into the forest canopy, you can watch animals from a unique vantage point. Positioned near waterholes, and salt licks, animals provide constant entertainment and seem undisturbed by the curious visitors, some of whom stay up all night to catch sightings of shy animals by floodlight. There is even a viewing place dug below ground with windows level with the waterhole, where elephants feet come within inches of your face. A trip to the treetop lodges of the Aberdares is quite unique and the rooms have a bell system, to wake you up for particularly good sightings, whereupon you can go out to the viewing decks or just peer out of your window, for example a leopard may warrant two rings, while a hyena might only get one ring.

Elephants dominate the waterholes and salt licks and when the lions and hyenas want a drink they have to content with elephants seeing them off at great speed. Leopards are shy and are best seen under the night-time floodlight. The National Park area is 296 miles (767km)The dry season is January - March, dry and hot. Daytime temperatures are pleasant all year round but it gets colder day and night during the dry winter months.

Wildlife

The Salient's origin lies in an elephant migration route between the two mountains. The forest is rich in wildlife; elephant and rhino, warthog, bush pig and giant forest hog, waterbuck, duiker, suni, dikdik, bongo and reedbuck are all to be seen. In the canopy the black and white colobus monkey performs its aerial acrobatics and Sykes' monkey and the black faced vervet can also be found. The carnivores are represented by: lions, usually more hairy and spotted than on the plains, leopard and serval cat, the latter often seen on the moorlands and sometimes in its melanistic state.

Flora and Fauna

The unusual vegetation, rugged terrain, streams and waterfalls combine to create an area of great scenic beauty in the National Park. The park is surrounded by a predominantly indigenous forest, whose management is under an MoU between KWS and the Forest Department.

Main Attractions

The major attractions at Aberdare include: Lesatima peak, Kinangop peak, waterfalls, walks in the moorlands, Twin hills, Elephant hills and Table mountains, Elephants, Second largest population of black rhinos in Salient and Northern Aberdares, Queen Elizabeth learned of her accession to the throne at Tree-tops, The Kimathi Hideout, Night viewing of wildlife at the Ark & Treetops.