Journey to the Mountains of the Moon - 1994 (15)

General Impressions of the Ruwenzoris and Our Trek

The Ruwenzori Range is, without doubt, a very beautiful area with a unique and vast array of flora. Most of the time, the peaks are shrouded in cloud and this deepens the mystery surrounding the ranges. When the cloud does rise briefly there are tantalising glimpses of the peaks.

While we heard many different bird calls we were not often favoured with views of them but, had we had the time to linger would no doubt have seen more. We saw no signs of animals and from what our porters told us this was a legacy of the Tanzanian invasion several years earlier.

The Lonely Planet Guide, and the other route descriptions we had read were too brief to really do justice to the trek, or to really give us any idea of how hard it was. Three days of the trek are at altitudes at or above 4000 metres which was very tiring. We were unprepared for there being so many bogs although this is probably affected by recent weather. Both Dominic and I had experienced the vertical bogs of Mt Kenya but that was all over in a couple of hours whereas some of the bogs on this trek went on all day and sapped all of our strength in struggling across them. There is no doubt that high altitude trekking of this type is very hard and not to be taken too lightly.

To cope with the bogs a pair of old discardable sneakers would have been useful and would have allowed us to have dryer and warmer feet in the evenings.

It was very worth while making the side trip up to Elena Hut, even though we didn’t go up to Margherita Peak. The views were spectacular when the cloud lifted.

Food wise – we should have taken much more care over food selection, especially as we didn’t have to carry it. It was very demoralising to reach camp exhausted and then have to prepare a meal.

Our guide, Denisi, was very good and kept Dominic and I company and guidance all the way on each stage even though we were much slower than Pierre and Till. I think he took pity on Mzee! The Bakonzo porters, and the Zairean porter we had were all very good and willing to help. The oldest Bakonzo porter, Jerome – another Mzee, was very fit and wiry. All of the porters ran up and down these mountains as if they were level ground. I’d have liked to see some of them in the Sydney to Melbourne super marathon. I think they would have knocked the socks of some of the competition – including Cliff Young.