MOUNTAINEERINGDemo

Rwenzori Mountains: Mountains of the Moon

Rwenzori Mountains National Park, Western Uganda · Uganda

Challenging8 daysAfrica~£3,000 est.

Overview

The Rwenzori range on the Uganda–DRC border is Africa's most mysterious mountain massif — equatorial glaciers draped over peaks above 5,000m, permanently wrapped in cloud, with flora that has evolved in total isolation into alien giant forms: 10-metre groundsel trees, heather forests the size of oaks, giant lobelia with flower spikes taller than a person. It is the most otherworldly landscape in Africa and, outside specialist mountaineering circles, almost completely unknown. The standard Kilembe Route takes eight days to traverse the range from the Ugandan side. The elevation gain is relentless — you climb from 1,600m at the trailhead to the main ridge above 4,700m in four days, crossing from the tropical forest zone through giant heather, through the bizarre Afroalpine moorland, into the glaciated summit zone of Mount Stanley (5,109m, the third highest peak in Africa). The technical summit via Margherita Peak on Mount Stanley requires basic crampon and rope skills. The range averages 270 rain days a year — this is not an exaggeration. Every day will involve some rain. The trails are mud, the huts are basic, and everything below 4,000m is relentlessly wet and leechy. Above 4,000m the cold replaces the wet. The payoff is landscapes that have no parallel anywhere else on earth and glacier views that almost no one has ever photographed. The Rwenzori glaciers are retreating rapidly — at current melt rates, the ice fields will be gone by 2040. If equatorial glaciers are on your list, go now.