Rwenzori Mountains National Park

The Rwenzori Mountains rise along Uganda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, a 120-kilometre range of six snow-capped massifs known since antiquity as the Mountains of the Moon. Margherita Peak, its highest point at 5,109 metres, is Africa’s third-highest summit and one of the few places on the equator still carrying permanent glaciers and snowfields, though these have retreated sharply over the past century.

Almost 1,000 square kilometres of the range are protected as Rwenzori Mountains National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site rising from montane forest through bamboo, heather and Afro-alpine moorland to bare rock and ice. The park shelters around 70 mammal species and 217 recorded bird species, 17 of them found nowhere else, alongside giant groundsel and giant lobelia found only in East Africa’s equatorial highlands.

What to Expect

Most visitors base themselves at Kasese or the foothill lodges for one or two nights of day walks and birding, while reaching Margherita Peak itself is a serious high-altitude trek — the Central Circuit and Kilembe trails both run six to nine days round trip, with hired guides, porters and hut or camping accommodation arranged through the park’s trekking operators.