Sixty-four years later, writer Matthew Power and photographer Bobby Model retrace one of climbing's most extraordinary escapades. Photograph by Bobby Model
This is Alex Fiksman and me in our tent. I'm looking at a 1953 edition of Felice Benuzzi's No Picnic on Mount Kenya, which I found at a used bookstore. In the overleaf, there's a hand-drawn map of roughly their route.
Though we were never more than a quarter of mile [.4 kilometers] away from their actual route, we did decide to stick to the ridge tops instead of hacking through dense bamboo as they did.
I'm sure they would have made the same choice, if they had had a map. They did this entire trip without an actual map. One of the few sketches of the mountain they had was a picture from a tin of Kenylon-brand Meat and Vegetable Rations. —Contributing Editor Matthew Power
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