Chappal Waddi, Nigeria Highpoint

Chappal Waddi (7,936ft/2419m), Highpoint of Nigeria

 

Dec 22, 2022

Eric and Serge

Serge and were in Cameroon climbing country highpoints and had just finished climbing the highpoint of Central African Republic on the border near Ngaoui village. Next on the agenda was Chappal Waddi, the Nigeria highpoint. 

Chappal Waddi is exactly on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon. Some people hike from the Nigeria side, and I’ve heard this is a multi day jungle trek. However, the peak sounds much easier from the Cameroon side. My friend Travis G had climbed it from this side in 2017 and it sounded like a reasonable day trip. 

We planned to take the same route Travis had, and take motorcycles to and from the base like he had. 

After coming back from Mt Ngaoui we spent another night at Hotel Marion in Meiganga, then started out early in the morning at 5am headed west. We had heard conflicting information about the quality of this road, so gave ourselves the full day to get to Banyo. 

The road started out paved but soon deteriorated. The partially paved roads in west africa are probably the most difficult, since the large potholes have sharp corners that can easily puncture tires. 

We took our time, passing through a few checkpoints along the way. We got our first flat tire near Dandili, but a tire shop there patched it quickly. Basically every significant town along the road has a building with a stack of old tires out front, the tire graveyard, signifying the place to get your tires patched. Typically they are quick and cheap, taking about 15 minutes and $5.

After Tibati the road conditions really deteriorated with deep ruts cut by water that were barely passable with the low clearance car. 

Just outside Dabere we got a second flat tire, but were able to get it fixed in town. We pushed through extremely challenging road conditions and finally emerged in Banyo by 4pm. 

Our first order of business was to arrange motorcycle taxis for the next morning. We knew from Travis’s trip that the road deteriorated soon outside Banyo and it made sense to take motorcycles from town. 

Eric found some guys in the middle of town and we arranged for them to meet us at our hotel at 430am for the pickup. We were very explicit that it was very important to be there at exactly 430am. Otherwise we’ve found in Africa punctuality is not always to be expected. The price would be $30 per person. They would take us 30km up to the last village, Gandoua, then wait for us to do the hike, then take us back. 

We wanted to take two motorcycles since it would be faster and more comfortable than cramming onto one, and if one got a flat tire we could continue on the other.

Neither of the guys had been there before, but we had carefully planned the route based on satellite images. Also, maps.me had a good route to the village. 

For the start of the hiking route we wanted to follow Travis’s route but I wasn’t sure exactly where he had started. We also had Ginge fullen’s report from his climb, though he had done it in bad weather with low visibility and had just walked straight up to the summit over difficult terrain.

To give the highest chance of success we wanted to follow trails the whole way, if possible. Using the peakbagger app I could zoom in enough to faintly make out trails on the satellite images of the area. The trails went from one of the last villages all the way to the Nigeria border. From the border it looked cleared of trees so should be easy enough to follow.

I created a bunch of waypoints on peakbagger that connected the road to the border. It looked like there was a village a mile closer to the peak than my planned start point, but I couldn’t see any trails connecting from that village to the border. Trails most likely exist that just aren’t visible on the satellite images. But I wanted to reduce as much uncertainty as possible for summit day. 

So we planned to start slightly farther away on the planned route that followed trails the whole way from the road to the border. 

The route was 14 miles round trip. Based on Ginge’s report we expected a few checkpoints along the way. We planned to pass by these before sunrise on motorcycles, employing the same strategy as on Mt Ngaoui that the military guys would likely still be asleep at that hour and we could pass by undetected. 

With our plan in place our next business was filling up on gas. There is only one gas station in Banyo, but it wasn’t working. We spent a while driving around trying to find reliable gas to fill up, since the car was reading empty. People were selling gas in water bottles, but apparently they sometimes dilute it with water, which is bad for the car.

We found some that seemed trustworthy and filled up. We then stopped at a food stand and got some beef and plantains we ate with tooth picks. This is the standard street food in Cameroon and is quick, cheap, and tasty. 

We stayed at the hotel Le Confluent that night. It had no running water but was otherwise nice. We were used to taking cold bucket showers. 

Our motorcycle drivers were there promptly at 430am as planned, and we soon took off. It was chilly enough that I wore a jacket to keep warm, and I wore a face mask and hoodie to protect me from the jungle dust. That dust gets all over my face and hair otherwise after riding a motorcycle. 

Serge rode in the front helping the driver navigate as we zipped through town and up the dirt roads. It was amazing how Banyo transformed from a crazy hub of activity in the evening to being completely deserted at 430am. 

We made quick progress following deteriorating roads and I’m glad we didn’t try to push farther in the car since it wouldn’t have worked. 

We stopped at a checkpoint just outside of town and were going to sneak around the gate but a groggy policeman wandered out. I think we had woken him up. He said something to the motor cycle drivers then waived us through. I think he couldn’t tell we were white guys since we were all bundled up in the dark and we didn’t talk. Also he looked really tired.

We continued up, passing through a few more unmanned checkpoints. The road was steep and rough enough that my driver tipped over once but we were both fine and got back on. 

By sunrise we reached the river crossing just before Gondoua and got a little bit turned around on the trails. But after checking the satellite images we got back on course. 

I recalled Ginge saying he took a bus to Gondoua, but that was 20 years ago and conditions have changed a lot. At this point it’s really just a trail to Gondoua and only reasonably passable by foot or motorcycle. 

We rode through the river and into the village, then turned left and continued a bit farther up the valley. By 6am we reached the trail I had marked on my gps, just before the village beyond Gondoua. 

We told the motorcycle drivers to wait there and estimated we would be back around 1pm. 

We quickly jumped off and started walking. I didn’t want to have a bunch of villagers approaching us and asking questions, which would inevitably happen the longer we waited. We already knew the route so didn’t really need any help. I was worried people with questions could easily lead to us being told we werent allowed to do what we wanted to do. 

 

I led the way up the trails past a few huts. We said bonjour to a woman walking down, then continued past the huts into the open woods.

The trails were exactly where I’d marked them and we were soon past the village. I breathed a momentary sigh of relief. We had finally reached the stage of the journey where it was just us versus the mountain. In africa I think the biggest hurdles to climbing country highpoints are red tape and bureaucracy. If you can get past those the peaks are relatively easy. Granted, on this peak we would likely have to face the music on the way out at the checkpoints

we’d skipped, but by then we’d hopefully have already bagged the summit.

 

We continued up the trails as the sun rose, and it was an easy hike through the forests. The route occasionally passed through clearings, and these were the places I’d seen in the satellite images. 

In general we followed a ridge that led due north to the Nigeria border. We went over and down a few intermediate hills passing some huts, but didn’t see any people. We did see a monkey run across the trail ahead of us. 

 

Eventually we reached a completely cleared ridge with a few horses grazing, and we followed this all the way to the Nigeria border. We could finally see Chappal Waddi in the distance. It was a huge massif completely cleared of trees, and looked kind of steep. 

The border was officially marked with occasional grey border posts about 2ft tall. It generally follows the ridge and is dense jungle on the Nigeria side while mostly cleared for grazing on the Cameroon side.

We passed on hut on the ridge where a man was tending to a herd of cattle. I think he was kind of surprised to see us but we waved and he waved  back. 

I led the way along a nice trail that followed the border. We switch backed up the ridge higher and higher until the trail petered out in the grass. We continued through the open grass until reaching just below the summit rock scramble. 

 

Interestingly there was a herd of 30 zebu grazing just below the summit. I walked cautiously by them as a few picked their heads up to look at me. They had huge horns and were a little intimidating. Then a few started trotting towards me. The rest of the herd followed, and the trot got faster and faster until they started running towards me.

I got scared and sprinted towards the summit while Serge backed off in the other direction. The summit block was steep enough I figured I’d be safe by scrambling up there. I jumped up the rocks and luckily they had stopped chasing me. 

Serge was farther away and made a big circle around them. They started galloping towards him but he reached the safety of the summit before they reached him. 

The summit had a border marker on top and next to it was a fallen over wooden sign that said “Chappal Waddi”. There was no doubt we had reached the summit. 

We stopped for a break and I also saw a small monument from May 2022 placed by the Benue Hike Group from Nigeria. 

We had great views of jungle as far as I could see into Nigeria and partially cleared forest in Cameroon. 

Interestingly, there is a huge rock spire just on the Nigeria side of the border a bit to the southwest of the summit. I remember seeing this spire in pictures of Chappal Waddi online. Luckily for peakbaggers the spire is not the summit, though it looks like a fun technical climb.

I noticed there was another bump on the ridge 100m to the east that I measured a few meters taller than where we were using my sight level. We went over to tag it just in case, though it is clearly in Cameroon since the border post was on the first summit.

It appears the border follows the watershed, and the higher bump is on the side that drains to cameroon. This is an interesting situation. Does it mean the sub peak of the massif is named Chappal Waddi but the highest point of the massif is Chappal Waddi east peak? Or is the whole massif named Chappal Waddi and the highpoint of Nigeria is the west peak of Chappal Waddi? 

Serge and I had encountered a very similar situation on the Brunei highpoint, Bukit Pagon. The summit marker is right on the border, but there is a higher point that is officially unnamed just south along the ridge in Malaysia. 

We ate a quick snack then headed down. This time we stayed far away from the zebu herd on the Cameroon side before regaining our ascent route. 

We hiked back down the border, then regained the trails and followed those back south. It was getting pretty hot out and I was happy t

o have brought 3L of water. Though we did pass two streams en route in case we needed to fill up. 

By 2pm, a bit behind schedule, we made it back to the motorcycles. Our drivers were happy to see us, probably since it meant they could start riding again.

 

We made quick progress back, this time navigating much more easily in the daylight. There were a handful of other motorcycles riding up, so it is indeed a well traveled route. 

Down lower when the road improved we caught up to two trucks parked at a checkpoint. I was ready to face the music and get in trouble, but our drivers were not interested in stopping. 

They snuck around the side of the trucks, then accelerated past the checkpoint. I heard someone yelling at us but we didn’t slow down. Once out of sight we turned off on trails and followed trails all the way back to Banyo. This was a completely different route than we had taken up, but it ensured the military guys at the checkpoint couldn’t follow us. It also allowed us to bypass the lowest checkpoint and completely avoid getting in trouble.

 

Not that we had done anything wrong, but, like on Mt Ngaoui, there was a good chance we’d get hassled at the checkpoints, which I was happy to avoid. 

We made it safely back to the hotel by 330pm and paid our drivers. It was a bit late to start driving south for our next objective, so we cleaned up in the hotel, ate dinner, and spent one more night in Banyo. Our next objective would be Mt Cameroon, the highpoint of Cameroon.

 

 

 

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