Marsabit National Park and Reserve Marsabit town, which lies tucked in between the National Reserve to the north and the National Park to the south is about 560 km from Nairobi. The road is tarmac to Isiolo but thereafter has a rough earth surface for the remaining 310 km. The town and its sanctuaries lie atop a mountain rising sheer from the desert floor to a height of about 1707 m.
Marsabit mountain is a natural phenomenon, born out of volcanic fire and shaped by mist.
The mountain's great mass has created its own ambient climate. Every evening, about midnight, the hot air rising from the desert floor cools and forms clinging fingers c f mist which grasp the mountain rarely releasing their grip until the late part of the morning. Although the lower slopes are scorched and dry, above them is a richly forested wonderland of crater lakes and swamps, towering cliffs and giant trees, with a dazzling array of wildlife. Here bird and beast dart between the tall stands of juniper and podocarpus in a scene much as wildlife film-makers Osa and Martin Johnson recorded when they made their home at Lake Paradise, one of the crater lakes, in the 1920's. Many species of raptors inhabit the shaggy cliffs and the treetops around Lake Paradise and Sokorte Guda , a cliff lined bowl which forms a natural amphitheatre in which Marsabit's elephants parade to drink in the late afternoon.