It was formed during the most recent faulting of the Great Rift Valley about three million years ago. This event also let to the formation of the Mount Kenya. It was an active volcano in the last hundred thousand years. During this time, the crater below Kibo peak was formed. It has glaciers around the peak though it is estimated that they will not be there some 20 years to come due to global warming.
The first hint of the existence of the Mountain was recorded in the second century AD by a Greek geographer, Ptolemy who described it as the snow capped mountain of the moon. The vivid evidence of the existence of the mountain came from Chinese sailors in the sixteenth century who when they took the news home, but no one believed them. To non Africans, this was just a legend or a tale .No one believed such a mountain could really exist.
It was in 1848 when in a bid to bring Christianity to tribes around the Tsavo that German missionary, Johannes Rebmann spotted the snow capped mountain but still no one believed him. In 1861 the mountains was first recorded to have been scaled. This was by Europeans Otto Kersten and Baron Karl Klaus Von Der Decken who went up to the 4300m height. In 1889, the summit was reached by Europeans Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller. Since then, the mountain has slowly gained world recognition. On the 1st January 2000, a thousand people watched the first sunrise of the new millennium from the peak.