Miles na lango la kuzimu

There are many ways for you to get to hell on this planet. There's Hell's Gate near Lake Rotorua in New Zealand, and the same in Arizona's Gila Wilderness. Or you could try Hell's Gate Island in Antigua and Barbuda, or find your way there inside the fabled Mount Osore volcano in Japan. But of all of these places, they do not capture the feeling of it quite like Hells Gate National Park in Nakuru county.

Skip to camping site details or Njowora Gorge hike

Before this weekend, my 7-year-old's camping in Kenya was limited to places with perimeter fences and watchmen -- purportedly there to keep everything on the up and up. While none of those experiences qualified as any variation of hell, they weren't exactly heavenly, either.

The reason behind his 'secure' camping experiences is due to his vigilant mother, long fearful he'd be eaten if out beyond the wire. But she finally green-lit a one-nighter in the open.

There was one condition: no big cats wherever we go and keep him in wraps from bugs. Fair enough. With his compass and orange safety whistle in hand, he and I wandered to one of Kenya's gems where no one would fall victim to the wild and its blood thirst: Hell's Gate National Park. (To be clear, there is at least one spotted hyena in the park, as learned from fresh prints near our tent, but hyenas here stick to a nocturnal schedule and it's very unlikely that you see it before it sees you.)

Mom packed sunscreen, antihistamine, bug spray, a new pair of blue socks, and a zip-lock bag filled with whatever essentials a never-been-camping mother thinks her boy will need to survive the bestial bush-lands of Kenya. For me, the task was simple: return home with Miles still breathing, avoid anything else from going pear-shaped, and above all else, make sure he gets his camping thrill on. When the moment arrived, I pulled the nutella and marshmallows from the pantry and we were off.

For me, a sub-plot to this whole trip was my need to exorcise past demons - hell demons to be sure - left lingering in the corner of my mind since the last camping experience in Hell's Gate 10 years ago: the most unpleasant camping experience forever and for always.

Now, my native state in the States, Oregon, has roughly 50 million fewer people than in Kenya, and so it has a lot of empty space inside of it... innumerable places where a thrill-seeking pack of folks can rave all night in a national forest, or a barren public beach, or somewhere unseen by a human in the past half century within the vastness of Oregon's high-desert plains. But this is Kenya, and that kind of vastness doesn't exist here, and so people will inevitably, somewhere, end up camping within ear shot of each other now and then.

Hell's Gate may not be Teddy Roosevelt's Crater Lake or Yosemite, where rangers zealously patrol millions of acres of national park sites looking for foolery and footprints where they visitors are told not to go, but Hell's Gate is equally glorious and, in its own way, superior to a US park. But what I witnessed in Hells Gate NP that night long ago is simply non-existent in an Oregon public campsite, much less a national park: a profane contempt for decency, or, put more aptly for this post, hell personified.

With my tent set up and new fire crackling in a pit, droves of cavalier city dwellers disembarked from a red disco-lit bus, fanning outward across the larger campsite. Some were drunk and several couldn't wait a minute longer to splash their chrome-yellow urine on the dry dirt under their feet. Others appeared dismayed that the journey into the sticks was over and they were now required to stand upright, scanning for the best spot to resume the party.

To my horror, a passenger wheeled out a diesel-powered generator and a sound system fit for the 40forty Lounge. This would proceeded to pump head-splitting sonic thumps into the darkness for the next 8 hours, snuffing the life from my measly fire.

The thumping stopped, and my sleep began, only when the morning sun cauterised this vampiric malfeasance. Once over with, and my gear packed, I vowed never to return to Hell's Gate with a tent, and for ten years I didn't, save only a few day trips. But with Miles, and limited time, and the no-cats rule, there were few options to get out and beyond the wire, so it was Hell's Gate by default.

When we arrived to the park's entrance I inquired about the camp sites, other campers, and which sites other than Ol Dubai were, by the ranger's estimate, the best. Endachata, she said... and it was empty with no reservations booked. I paid the basic entry and resident camping fee - a citizen ticket for the boy - and we made way for the unseen site. I suggested that if anyone else showed up enquiring about where to set up, the ranger could kindly suggest Ol Dubai. She laughed, which I took to mean she understood my fears, and sent us on our way.

Apart from Ol Dubai, campsites in Hell's Gate NP include Naiburta and Endachata, the latter is where Miles unfurled his sleeping bag, 'beyond the gate,' as he excitedly put it. Endachata, or Endarasha, is a 'special' campsite, meaning it's suppose to require a reservation and calls for a higher fee (a whopping 7,500 KES). But this rule had apparently been relaxed.

Bird Hide is also a campsite, or so someone mentioned, and indeed there was evidence of a fire pit. Endachata is, as far as I could tell, two separate sites, one with a picnic table at the end of the bluff, the other some 50 meters away and suitable for a larger group; both overlook Gorge Rd, and a water trough below. Opposite the two sites is a sightly section of the Hell's Gate cliffs. A painted stone half-hidden by brush mentioned something about a toilet. (Update. Since visiting in May 2026, one of these camp sites (the "A" site as I marked it in a photo below) is now rather difficult to find, but it's still there. To get there you need to drive through the thickets, but it's there.

The road from Elsa Gate.

We went for the picnic table, camp B. Another painted stone indicated where to find it. For Miles, it was perfect, for me, it would be a night of exorcising jinns.

One of the wonders of Hell's Gate, and indeed of the greater Naivasha area, is the amount of obsidian around. Only in the Rift Valley is there such an abundance of it in Africa (apparently it can be found in Cameroon and a few other pockets in West Africa). When I was a kid I'd visit a place in Oregon and another in northern California's Modoc county where obsidian was a visitor's draw. Furthering my desire to seek it out, I was born on the slope of a volcano in the western US, and so while Hell's Gate NP doesn't look like home, it weirdly feels that way to me. With the gear out and up, I couldn't help but feel some regret for having avoided Hell's Gate for so long. In total, Hell's Gate is well trodden but pure masterpiece.

Of course, among the splendour of HGNP is the option of cycling through it, something I have no interest in doing, or a place to lace up and walk almost anywhere in the park. While, no doubt, over past millennia many unfortunate souls have been eaten by large predators in what is now the national park of today, in 2022, if there's anything that's going to ruin your situation it's a flash flood in the Hell's Gate Gorge. 'Wild bees' are apparently another problem, and have attacked hikers. Some unfortunate folks ended up falling from a cliff in a frantic get-away from swarming would-be killer bees. Getting to the gorge wasn't part of the plan and it was closed, anyway.

Warthogs enter their burrows hindside first.

While I was thinking about obsidian, Miles was thinking about warthogs. There isn't a lot of animal activity on atop the campsite bluff, but warthogs happily do their thing there. The first of several we saw sprinted by the landy on our way in. They're big, 150+ kgs kinda big. Miles was unfazed. Excellent, I thought. This will all be fine as the boy's proving again he's got my camping DNA. I would learn later that warthog piglets maintain exclusive claim to one of their mamma's teats and won't use any other; as warthogs have only four teats, litters are typically capped accordingly - bad luck is there's a fifth.

All else went well and Miles eventually made it home alive. We didn't make it to the hot springs for a morning soak, but will next time. As for the Ol Dubai experience, it's buried, left to rot in the pit of HGNP. Camp site details:

Special Campsite

Endachata

There is nothing spacial about Endachata other than it will cost you 7500 KES to not have anyone else camp next to you. There is no water, no toilet, no longer a table, and one of its few shade trees was cut down. It does have a nice view of the sunset as it faces west, but with that also comes a much louder presence of the geothermal operation over the nearby hill. Great views, too, of the open grassland below and whatever wildlife is down there grazing our visiting a nearby waterhole. Basically, you're paying for privacy, and in Hells Gate, that's worth considering. There are also some footpaths that lead down to the grassland plain on the canyon floor, which is a plus.

Public Sites

Naiburta

Big site, on a slope, several fire pits, and large enough for 50 people if you need the space. Baboon, zebra, spotted hyena, and buffalo visitors possible and likely. Water, toilets, and a pit for you to dump your crap into if you're that kind of person. There are some small "shelters" there, too, which I supposed might be useful if its raining and you have nowhere else to go.

Ol Dubai

Run down but usable. Toilets, water. a lot of space so be prepared for others to make their presence also known. Similar shelters to what you find in Naiburta. Baboons.

Gorge

Ol Njowora

There was a time when you could park at the tail head and choose your own path down the gorge, without an entrance fee. That time is now over.

I was first there around 2012 and hadn't been back since, until my most recent visit in May 2026.

Once parked, a guide or some other guy will track you down and start making himself look useful, like putting a rock under your wheel, or offering an overpriced bottle of water, or whatever his unique courting routine is to further extract money from you. Eventually you'll be led to a small enclosure where another guy is sitting behind a desk, looking official, but with a slump in his spine as he entertains another guy telling you how much money you need to enter the gorge. "There's a short, medium, and long tour," he will tell you, but there's no map to reference or further details to understand what each of these means. The short tour, so I was told, is 2000 KES, medium 3000, and long 4000 (each price apparently inclusive of both me and my boy). Going with a guide is now mandatory. Despite being a resident and my son a citizen, there was no negotiating a lower price. Pay to play.

A narrow channel that shoots off from the main gorge is the best to experience, but this is closed, so we were told in the parking lot, due to the 2019 flash flood that resulted in the tragic deaths of seven people. Fair enough, if it actually were closed for this reason, but this is a pretense to simply extort more money from you if you want to see it. So, of course, it's accessible. There was a ranger lingering around the entrance to this section of gorge when we made it there, and the starting price for entry was 2000 KES to his mpesa account.

I have no issue with the gorge requiring a fee to enter, and, with that, guides and other people having a livelihood. The least they could do is kick out the drunks who hang around the entrance and hustle visitors and put up some official fees and a map. In short, be professional about it. It's really not that hard.

Gazelle, giraffe, water buffalo, zebra, warthog, mongoose, baboons, and more at the other end of those binoculars from the Endachata campsite.

The map at the ranger post, woefully inadequate.