This is an archived web site I designed in 1997 for Hot Ice Ltd, a Uganda
safari operator. Subsequent years brought trouble for the Ugandan travel
industry, and this site was discontinued. Things have improved since then.
You can look them up
for current contact information.
Rwenzori Circuit
Day One
On Day One plan to arrive at park headquarters
at the Rwenzori Mountaineering Services (RMS) concession building at
Ibanda in early morning so as to have ample time to arrange payments,
rent equipment and select guides and porters.
Begin your hike by leaving park headquarters
(5400ft/1646 m) walking past typical "wattle
and mud daub" Bukonjo homes and gradually moving upward through elephant
grass and garden plots. It takes approximately forty minutes to reach the
National Park boundary (which can be pleasant half or one day
trip for someone not going further). The trail then follows the Mobuku
River, crossing recent landslide areas (to be negotiated carefully), and
requires scrambling over rocks and bluffs before reaching the Buhoma river
after about two and a half hours.
After crossing the river you will have a very steep climb
through open bracken fern slopes and podocarus forest up
to Nyabitaba Hut (8700ft/2,652 m) reached about an hour and a half past the
Mahoma River crossing. During this part of the trip you may be able to hear
chimpazees, and some times behind the hut you can see black and white colobus
and blue monkeys, and catch glimpses of the brilliantly-coloured
Rwenzori touraco (a bird of the treetops).
Across the valley to the north of Nyabitaba Hut lie
the rocky and largely unclimbed portal peaks, which rise above 14,000 ft
(4,627 m). If the hut is too crowded, there is a large rock shelter just
beyond and below the visitors hut. Total time for an average hiker from
Nyakalengija to Nyabitaba is about 5 hours, and with ups and downs the total
elevation gained is 4000 ft (1,200m). This is a substantial effort for the
first day. Slower hikers could take considerably longer, so insist on
leaving park headquarters before noon to avoid being on the trail after
dark (7 PM all year round).
Day Two
Copyright © 1997, Hot Ice Ltd.
Photos copyright © 1997 by Scott A. Yost, used by permission.