Untamed Wilderness, Majestic Splendour
24 million-year-old Mount Elgon is a dormant volcano, crowned by a vast crater some eight kilometres wide, honeycombed by labyrinthine caves, fissured by valleys, cascaded by streams and cloaked in forest, it straddles the border between Kenya and Uganda.
Known both as the ‘Mountain of the Breast’ and the ‘Mountain of Illusion’, the basalt bluffs of enigmatic Elgon has been held sacred for centuries and, ancient beyond comprehension, remains a potent link with the dawn of time. Thought once to have been the highest mountain in Africa, Elgon is now her fourth highest (4,321 metres above sea level) and is home to the so-called ‘Troglodyte Tuskers’, the wandering elephant, world renowned for their habit of digging for salt in the caves that honeycomb the lower slopes of the mountain.
Fact File
Altitude: up to 4,321 m above sea level.
Area: 1,445 sq km.
Location: Kapchorwa: Eastern Uganda on the border with Kenya. 78km from Mbale.
Distance from Kampala: 840km north of Kampala.
Gazetted: gazetted as a National Park in 1962.
Climate: The best time to visit is during the dry season (June to August) and December to March.
Vegetation: there are four altitudinal belts common to afro-montane systems: afro-alpine, sub-alpine or heath, bamboo and montane forest. Bamboo forests grow in the southern and westerns parts of the park, and shoots can grow up to 15m tall.
Wildlife: although shy, many animals exist in the park including buffalo, bushbuck, black-fronted duiker, tree hyrax, and bush pig. Leopard and hyena also live in the park, and elephant have recently been returning to the area from Kenya. Primates include blue monkey, baboon and black-and-white colobus.
Birds: 300 recorded species including pigeons, turacos, hornbills and raptors. Particularly interesting and often sighted are Ross’s turaco, casqued hornbill, gregarious hornbill, crowned eagle and lammergeyer.
Roads: 4WD is recommended, especially during the rainy seasons.
The Geological Fact File
Mt Elgon is a dormant volcano standing astride the border between Kenya and Uganda.
At 4301 m on the Kenyan side Mt Elgon is the second highest mountain in Kenya.
It is thought that Mt. Elgon was once the highest mountain in Africa until volcanic activity and subsequent erosion reduced its height. It is now the fourth highest mountain in Africa.
Mt Elgon reputedly has the largest base (80km) of any freestanding volcano in the world.
Mt. Elgon is estimated to be at least 24 million years old, making it the oldest dormant volcano in East Africa
Approximately 8km in diameter, Mt. Elgon’s caldera is one of the largest intact calderas in the world
The highest peaks in Uganda are: Wagagai (4321m), Mubiyi (4211m), and Jackson’s Summit (4161m).
African safari wildlife
Apart from rodents and shrews, which in a recent survey were found to be common and diverse, primates are the most common mammals. The mountains’ swamps are frequented by defassa waterbucks, sitatungas and de Brazza’s monkeys while bush pigs or common duiker lurk in the undergrowth. Predators include spotted hyenas and leopards.
Bird watching
Three marked trails radiating from the Forest Exploration centre offer good bird watching: swallows wing over the valleys, where iridescent tacazze and golden-winged sunbirds flit. Fruiting figs attract various pigeons and starlings, Hartlaub’s and Ross’ turacos and crowned African grey and black-and-white-casqued hornbills.
Regionally threatened species: Lammergeyer, African Crowned Eagle, Ring-necked Francolin, Striped Fluff tail, Cape Eagle Owl, Red-chested Owlet, Thick-billed Honey guide, Toro Olive Greenbul, Grey-chested Illadopsis, Grey-winged Robin, Purple-throated Cuckoo Shrike
Other restricted-range species: Hunter’s Cisticola and Jackson’s Francolin
About the mountain
Mount Elgon is the shell of a volcano, with a large caldera. Jutting westwards from the main mountain extends the Nkonkonjeru peninsula, a ridge about 20km long, which rises to about 2,350 m. Besides volcanic forces, many other geological events have shaped Mount Elgon. The many crater lakes in the mountain’s caldera were formed by glaciers, which extended from the summits down to around 3,500 metres during the Pleistocene era. The same glaciers gouged a deep gash out of the eastern wall, creating what is now the Suam Gorge. Rock falls and landslides in addition to the growth of astounding vegetation have enhanced the fascinating landscape. Gazetted in 1993, the park is primarily concerned with conserving and restoring the original forest that once covered the slopes.
The high moorlands
Stunted heath and moorland grow above 3000m and are accessible only by hiking overnight. Up here grow the so-called big game plants – giant fleshy herbs such as lobelias and groundsels, which can reach 6m in height and are most profuse in Mount Elgon’s vast caldera. There are few mammals at these heights but Chanler’s mountain reedbuck are sometimes seen near the caldera rim. Most outstanding of the birds of prey is the lammergeyer, but other raptors include Verreaux’s eagle and mountain buzzards. Scarce and alpine swifts range widely after insects and moorland francolins feed among the grass tussocks.
About the Big Game plants
At the edge of the forest, some 3000 to 4000 m above sea level, exist some unusual endemic plants that have paid a high price for venturing into the harshness of the mountain environment - they have turned into giants.
In order to deal with water loss from the immense solar variations and tissue damage from the freezing nighttime temperatures, these monsters have developed some intricate survival mechanisms. The oversized rosettes or night buds on the giant groundsels and some of the lobelias, for instance, are designed to insulate the softer growing and reproducing layers lying within the plant’s heart. The layered sheaths of dead leaves that clothe the stems of some of the plants are intended to insulate and seal the internal tissues whilst the living leaves and bracts are typically light green and shiny to reflect the light and hairy to insulate the plant from the cold.
At night both groundsel and lobelia close their leaves inwards in order to protect the center and so effective is this protection that on a frosty morning after a cold and clear night the internal temperature of a giant groundsel can be as much as 5C warmer than the surrounding air.
Climbing and hiking
Mount Elgon is ideal for climbers seeking a less strenuous alternative to the Rwenzori Mountains, as scaling Elgon requires no technical climbing skills and all the major summits are accessible to hikers. The beautifully wooded slopes, smaller scale, and milder climate make Mount Elgon a wonderful wilderness experience that is often overlooked by tourists. Guides, porters and park rangers are highly recommended but optional. An armed granger is required in the caldera for safety reason. There are two main trails in the park; the Sasa and Piswa, and any combination of the two trails is possible depending on fitness interests and time available. Ideally allow at least 4 days for a normal trip, which will include climbing the highest peak (Wagagai).
Wildlife highlights: elephant, leopard, giant forest hog, bushbuck, defassa waterbuck, bushbuck, eland, buffalo, duiker, olive baboon, black and white colobus, blue monkey and golden cat. Birds: more than 240 species have been recorded.
The Birth of Mount Elgon
The original volcano, which later formed what we now know as Mount Elgon, is thought to have ruled supreme as the unchallenged giant of Africa’s volcanoes some 12-20 million years ago. At some time during the Miocene Epoch (the fourth epoch of the Tertiary period 23 to 5 million-years ago) however, it suffered an explosion so cataclysmic that most of it was blown skywards and what we see today represents merely the debris that was ejected from its main vent. At a later point in its history, the volcano began to disgorge lava, which flowed up and over the scattered debris and created a low convex profile (4° slope) known as a shield volcano.
Over subsequent centuries, the mountain suffered the normal effects of erosion and weathering. However, because this happened in a very uneven fashion as a result of the overlying (hard) lava eroding more slowly than the underlying (softer) debris, a number of caves, cliffs and bluffs were formed on the lower slopes of the mountain.
Subsequent volcanic activity
Mount Elgon’s last major eruption is thought to have occurred at some time in the early Pleistocene Epoch (12 million years ago), since which time only minor eruptions have occurred, the most recent being about 2 million years ago. At some point, however, the main vent of the volcano became blocked and this resulted in a series of horizontal fissures being formed, from which molten lava spilled. The Wanale Ridge (the 20 km escarpment of "peninsula" that extends west from the main mountain towards Mbale town) is the result of this process.
The formation of the caldera
Mount Elgon’s caldera (crater) was formed when the period of intense volcanic activity and violent eruptions had finally ceased. At this point the magma chamber that lay within the volcano was drained of its contents, which resulted in the brittle volcanic cone that lay above it collapsing inwards to form a caldera. What remains is one of the largest (8 km diameter) intact calderas in the world, now ringed by weathered hills and peaks that rise to several hundred meters above its floor.
How the gorge and rivers were formed
With the arrival of the ice age, during the Pleistocene Epoch (1.5 million years ago), Mount Elgon’s mighty caldera gradually filled with an immense glacier, which overflowed its rim, extended down its slopes to a level of around 3500 m and left a series of small lakes (mires) and an accumulation of glacial debris (moraines) in its wake. As global temperatures increased at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch, the glacier began to melt and the sheer power of its melt-waters forced two exit points through the rim of the caldera. The main bursting point of these waters is now known as the Suam Gorge and marks the point where the Suam River drains the caldera and hot springs bubble up from below the earth at a temperature of around 44 degrees C. The second, smaller burst-through point is to the northwestern edge of the rim and is marked by the emergence of the headwaters of the Simu River.
As the result of all these millions of years of volcanic activity, Mount Elgon is now the provider of a vital source of water to several million people throughout eastern Uganda and western Kenya.