Road status | Warning

September 6th, 2023 by marc.saperavi

We drove the whole loop Maralal to Marsabit via South Horr, Loiyangalani, North Horr and Kalacha. It's about 530 km.
Great scenery, especially near the lake and near Kalacha. It has some Namibia/Southern Angola vibes.
Be prepared for the roads wich are left in extremely poor conditions by the Kenyan government. If its not rocky and bumpy they are heavily corrugated and ... bumpy. Beside around the wind project (30 km), the roads are totally shit. 4x4 hardly recommended. The corrugation gets very VERY bad after Loiyangalani going to North Horr and after until Marsabit (280 km of nasty road, very bumpy, no way to avoid it). I got kicked out of gear once because of intense vibrations, wich never happened before. 25 km before reaching Marsabit from Kalacha, there is a brand new tarmac road coming from nowhere. Weird but nice surprise from the chinese.

Lot of people warned us about this road beeing really bad on tires and we have to agree. We definetly lost a fair amount of chunks on our profiles and got a lot of small cuts. Maybe you should reconsider coming here with new tires ? Ours had already 50k km but were still in very good shape.

Safety issues : no-one said anything to us about safety issues in the area but checkpoints disappeared after Loiyangalani going to North Horr and Marsabit. Anyway we couldn't feel confortable wilcamping knowing about the supposed bandits situation.
Between North Horr and Kalacha, in the middle of nowhere, there were big rocks placed across the track to stop vehicles... Very sketchy situation and there is no one around, and no other cars in this part of the track. We didnt stop and managed to drive on the side to avoid the rocks. Maybe it was 2 weeks old and no-one bothered to remove the rocks but still its scary...

Good luck !

May 17th, 2023 by we-travel.at

Nearly nothing left of the tar, but otherwise OK gravel road, not even 4x4 required in this area.

January 1st, 2022 by ruttotarus

The road towards the north of the wind farm to Loiyangalani and then to Sibiloi and Koobi Fora and Illeret is okay. We had only 1 spare tire and did not have any punctures. Corrugations is bad for 50kms after Loiyangalani just before the road forks to North Horr and Sibiloi. Nothing to fear. There is a new fueling station in Loiyangalani now, so there are 2 (alongside the one at the wind farm - both sell clean, good fuel).
There is a reputable vehicle repair workshop at the wind farm in case you need repairs.
Watch out for the slippery gravel on the route. Don't drive too fast, lower your tire pressures, lock your hubs, engage 4wd and centre diffnlock, and be attentive. One of our cars rolled over on the way to Sibiloi due to a combination of these.

February 5th, 2021 by Onwheels

This status report is no longer up-to-date. Hardly anything is left of tar and the ascent / descent is partially concreted.

March 8th, 2019 by Beep Beep Africa

Here there is a section of tar road created for the wind farm project, don't let it raise your hopes as it's short lived (~25km).

South of here towards Maralal the road is gravel and fairly slow going.

North of here the road is volcanic rocks and extremely rough on tyres. We carry only 1 spare and several checkpoints and locals commented on this.

North of Loiyangalani the roads are a mix of volcanic rock, sand, and rock crawling riverbed crossings. Some of the roads are severely corrugated. For the crossings high clearance is essential. We took the road to Marsabit via Mt Kulal (the other option is longer via North Horr) and several times had to get out and move large volcanic rocks out of the way.

If planning a trip here ensure you have enough fuel for hours of rock crawling, watch your tyres, and under carriage and don't attempt in rainy season, it's probably impassable during the rains. No safaricom coverage for most of it and traffic is virtually non existent. Beautiful scenery and plenty of dik diks and large antelope around.