No Picnic on Mount Kenya: The Story of Three POWs' Escape to Adventure

This is a great story and a very good book. While it is billed as a daring escape followed by a harrowing climb, I saw it as something else. The story begins with the author languishing in a barren POW camp in a foreign country with virtually no chance of escaping and making it out of the enemy country in order to return home Italy. The challenge of POW camp was to fight boredom, pettiness, and malnourishment. The author, apparently a rock climber in his civilian days although this was never mentioned outright, responded to this situation by realizing he needed a goal, something to live for and a way to rise above the monotony. So he gave himself an inspiring and also absurdly difficult challenge—one that would have been difficult even for well-trained, well-equipped, and expert climbers.While the actual breaking out of the camp was relatively easy, the fact that they pretty much accomplished, or even dared to attempt, the bigger goal was captivating.The descriptions of Mount Kenya and what they saw and the challenges (risks of: capture, starvation, exhaustion attack by various animals, the technical aspects of the climb, etc) were good and very interesting. Reading the author’s words is sort of akin to sitting in the presence of a hero—maybe or maybe not he is a very great story teller—but just being in the presence of someone who did what he did makes the reading experience worthwhile.

Very interesting tale of adventure and derring-do about three Italian POW’s interned in Kenya during WW2 who break out of their camp to climb Mr Kenya, after spending months accumulating and making the kit, clothing and food they will need. A bit tedious in its style of writing (probably because it’s translated from Italian?) but an amazing tale nevertheless.

I read this book for my book group. I'm generally fond of memoirs -- even those involving adventure. And this didn't do much to change my mind or taste. But it does have its satisfactions: Questions about the mental stability of the climbers aboind. And the tale of their survival seems unbelievable (though I don't doubt that the book is factual. I won't read it again, but I really don't consider it a waste of time.

Amazingly inspirational book. I could not stop reading so finishes in two days. This book inspired me to plan our next hike. Waiting patiently for COVID-19 lock down endings.

Amazing story! Interesting recollection of memories of 3 Italian prisoners of wars who escape from an English run POW camp in Kenya just for climbing Mt Kenya with no equipment or adequate gear. A nice story to read.

This book is good reading and unbelievable to what extent a man goes through.

It was amazing to me that these three pow's broke out of camp to climb a mountain. Achieving what they did must have helped them last for the remaining years of their imprisonment. The author's humor was impressive. I read this at the same time I was reading "Unbroken". Even though the treatment by the British was not brutal as it was by the Japanese, the Italians were still imprisoned for years, and it affected them too.

Interesting.

Most books about climbing mountains are by and about people who have good clothing, footwear, ropes, axes, crampons, ironmongery and a fair amount of decent food. These men, escaping with difficulty from a POW camp, had to make everything themselves, using whatever was available in material and skills among their prisoner comrades; and the wonder is that they were able to achieve what they did, and that they survived.The account of this attempt to reach the highest point of Mount Kenya, the reasons why it proved impossible, and the success in getting to a lesser summit and planting their flag there, and of their return to the prison camp, because what they wanted was to climb the mountain, not to escape, is truly heroic.Other mountaineering books describe more successful expeditions, but I doubt whether many (or indeed any) of the big names in recent peak-bagging epics could have done what these three Italians did, and endured the hardships, not for fame or money, but just to climb the mountain.I nearly gave the book only 4 stars because of a few over-poetic pieces, but decided that it would be grossly unfair: the way Italians (or French or Germans) write is not the drily unpoetic way that we're used to here - we just need to adapt to description without banter.

Came at this book from the POW angle, and although the first third of the book covered his period behind bars, it was all directed to the mountaineering challenge of climbing Mt Kenya, at over 17,000 ft, a feat even the best equiped and prepared of climbers found difficult.The balance of the book was part travelogue of the various fauna found in the high mountains, part mountain climbing comparable to the author's previous experience of Alpine slopes.The book just nipped along, and although an 'enemy' you did kind of will him to do well, almost entirely because of the totally amateurish efforts to furnish himself with the minimum food and equipment required to take on the challenge. Without spoiling the ending as to whether he was successful, you did feel that it was a story worth telling, and even although I have no interest in mountain climbing, you understood his desire to conquer.Just ok, but I can imagine as one of the first to walk/climb this area, he covered how an emotional Italian would feel.

Marvelous book. I loved the author's sense of humour, especially displayed near the end and start of the book. You can see how for some of these men their silliness, often very inventive or satirical, at times helped them assuage boredom as POWs or kept them going when they were exhausted on their self-inflicted travails. The author demonstrates an eclectic, to my mind interesting and often enlightened, knowledge of the world, often based on literary experience. References to other authors are dotted throughout the text. The fact that they chose to go on this almost unimaginable journey when so many others failed at earlier hurdles with so much help and they were just 3 Prisoners of War, is part of what makes me feel on occasion throughout amazed at their feat, enthusiasm and vision. There is much to think about here. The author himself reflects seriously as well as humourously about what life as a prisoner of war, or any other person confined in some way, which we can perhaps relate to in recent times due to covid more than before, reveals to a person about themselves. Their quest to discover themselves in a more unrestricted way by deciding to escape, not to go to Italian or neutral controlled territory, but to go on an adventure is one I admired throughout the book and at the same time I could not believe their bravery, or perhaps foolhardiness, at times. It is a book which reflects to some extent on the human condition - our sense of identity as individuals and as part of a collective, our struggles to define ourselves and find a purpose in the course of life, especially when much is beyond our control. It is a book of its time, with different attitudes to African peoples from what one would expect of a modern western observer. However, I do not find the attitude towards Africans consistently or overwhelmingly hostile. Indeed, there is a strong sense that the author was aware of the sense, if not always the details, of history when he embarked on this quest with his two companions. He makes clear that subsequently he read much more related material and his summary of this product of his obsession with the mountain is part of the end of the book. This was a land long occupied before Europeans came to hunt, climb etc. and rule, of course. At times the narrative becomes slightly arduous, when the journey itself caused the men difficulty and seemed endlessly difficult. Much like Shackleton's account of his famous expedition to Antarctica, and indeed the parallel is drawn by the author, when food runs low the account draws an inordinate amount of energy from description of the emotional attachment to food - such as the sheer joy at finding a small biscuit the 3 mountaineers could share for a meal. It is at times an intense narrative, with much to offer. The translation into English flows well and is easy to read. A wonderful book. I read it slowly - in installments on occasion over parts of lunch breaks at work over a number of months.

An excellent book telling the remarkable true story of how a party of Italian POWs escaped from their camp at Nanyuki on the slopes of Mt Kenya and climbed the mountain itself. An enormous challenge in itself without the added difficulty of having to construct their own equipment from the materials to hand in the camp. Ice ax from an old hammer, climbing ropes from sisal strings from the bedding. A wonderful account sensitively written. A tale of great courage and daring. I think it's out of print now so the Kindle e-edition is particularly welcome.

A very engaging account of three POWs who escape from their prison camp during the second World War, to go on an adventure to climb Mount Kenya.