Mt Richard-Molard, Highpoint of Guinea and Cote D’Ivoire

Mt Richard Molard (1744m), Highpoint of Guinea and Cote D’Ivoire

Dec 19-22, 2021

Eric, Kahler, Serge

We were in West Africa climbing country highpoints over the Christmas break, with the goal of climbing and accurately measuring highpoint summit elevations. As far as I had researched, there have not been accurate enough surveys in several West African countries to determine the country highpoint with certainty. The most accurate elevation measurements in the area are generally satellite-based SRTM measurements, but those are still not accurate enough to distinguish between several highpoint candidates. 

We had finished climbing and surveying several highpoint candidates in Togo, the Ghana and Benin highpoints, and four candidate highpoints in Gambia. To get accurate elevation measurements I was using a Trimble GeoXR with zephyr 2 antenna that Compass Data had generously let me borrow. 

The next goal after Gambia was to climb Mt Richard-Molard, the highpoint of both Guinea and Cote D’Ivoire. Interestingly, this is one of only five peaks in the world that is the country highpoint of two countries. The other peaks are Everest (Nepal/China), Korab (North Macedonia/Albania), Mt Stanley (Uganda/DRC), and Mt Blanc (Franc/Italy). 

I couldn’t find any trip reports of this peak and I don’t think it gets climbed too often. Mt Richard-Molard is a peak on the Mt Nimba massif, which extends several miles along the Guinea Cote D’Ivoire border and into Liberia. While the whole massif is called Mt Nimba, the highest point on the ridge on the Guinea/Cote D’Ivoire side is called Mt Richard-Molard, and this is several miles from the Liberia border. 

The peak is part of the Mt Nimba strict nature reserve, which is a UN protected site in Guinea. Access to the reserve is legally only allowed if accompanied by a guide.

 I was able to contact Adam, who helps administer the reserve, and arranged a guide for us to climb Mt Richard-Molard Dec 22.  

Getting to the reserve is not easy. International flights to Guinea all arrive in Conakry, but the reserve is on the other side of the country on the far eastern end. In the past the park has helped coordinate charter flights to Nzerekore, a town near the reserve, from Conakry, but that option is not available anymore. There are currently no domestic flights to Nzerekore and the only way to get there from Conakry is to drive.

Unfortunately, the roads in Guinea are in tough shape. One of our contacts in Guinea said there has been little maintenance since covid, and typical driving speeds may only be 15mph. This makes what might theoretically be a short drive from Conakry to the park actually turn into two full long days of driving. 

Adam confirmed that it was possible to get to the reserve in two days with a regular 4×4 vehicle. In Guinea, as far as we’d researched, it’s not possible to rent a vehicle, and the best way we found to get around efficiently is to hire a driver with a vehicle. Serge found Cellou in Conakry who was able to coordinate a 4×4 vehicle with driver for us for our entire trip. 

In early September there was a coup d’etat in Guinea with all the borders closed, and Adam advised that we wait a bit to see if things stabilized. By mid november he told us it would be safe to visit Guinea again, so we finalized plans for the trip. This trip would be part of a larger trip to climb and measure the highpoints of Togo, Ghana, Benin, Gambia, Guinea, Cote D’Ivoire, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau.

Dec 19

After surveying the top four candidates for the Gambia highpoint we boarded a plane in Dakar and made it to Conakry in the evening. After making it through customs we met Cellou, who introduced us to our driver.  He showed us two trucks we could choose from and we chose the one with a covered back so we could safely store our gear. 

It was late at night so the plan was to make it to a hotel just outside town and spend the night there. When we pulled out I realized why it’s a bad idea to rent and drive your own vehicle in Guinea. The roads are very rough, with deep potholes or no pavement at all and huge rocks sticking out. And that’s in Conakry, the biggest city in the country. The only rule that seems to be in effect on the road is that little vehicles yield to bigger vehicles. 

Roundabouts are numerous and chaotic. In the US vehicles inside the roundabout get right of way, but in Guinea all vehicles are jostling to cut in front of the others, only yielding to bigger vehicles. Within the first 15 minutes a car bumped into my side of the truck and our driver and the other got out and argued. I was very happy to not be driving. 

The dent was small so we just continued driving. The map showed a major road leading out of Conakry, but the driver took extremely rough dirt and rock side roads. I suspect this because the main road was rougher, had crazy traffic, or both. Unfortunately, our driver only spoke a local language and a little bit of French so communication was confusing and difficult. Serge did all the talking with our driver since Serge speaks fluent French.

By 11pm we reached the outskirts of town and stopped at a small pull off in the woods. It turned out there was a house and hotel there, though it wasn’t obvious. We eventually settled into two rooms and made it to bed. 

Dec 20

We went out to the truck at 6am, but the driver said there was a change of plans. His boss (not Cellou) had decided the truck was not reliable enough for our planned trip, so was sending a different driver and vehicle out to meet us. At first this was kind of frustrating since it added a delay. We just said TIA (This is Africa) and went along.

But this actually turned out to be excellent news. By 7:30am Mamadou arrived in a Toyota Landcruiser. He would be our new driver and he spoke excellent French. I don’t think we could have possibly had a better driver and companion on the trip. Also, the Landcruiser was the perfect vehicle for the trip. It ran on diesel so got excellent mileage, had a snorkel for driving through rivers, and was built for rough 4×4 roads. The only issue was one of the front seat belts was missing, but we gerry-rigged a way to connect the long back middle belt to the front and connect to the shoulder belt.

We moved the gear to the new vehicle and soon took off. The roads were still in tough shape. There was no pavement anymore, and we drove on rough red jungle dirt. The air conditioning didn’t work in the vehicle and it was hot enough that we needed to roll down the windows. But unfortunately all the vehicles churned up the jungle dust in the air and it soon coated us in the vehicle. That was something we learned to deal with on the trip. I kept a dirty outfit for the car and a clean outfit for the hotels.

Road rules outside of town are kind of interesting. In theory you’re supposed to drive on the right side of the road, but the roads are so rough that often the only passable section is on the left side. But for oncoming vehicles sometimes the only passable section is on the right side. So often we would be on the left and an oncoming vehicle would be on the right. Generally at the last instant we would each switch back to the correct side. But if the oncoming vehicle was a huge slow-moving truck on the right we would generally stay on the left.

I’m glad Mamadou was driving and knew all the rules of the road here, because I would have been pretty nervous. There is also very liberal use of the horn in Guinea. You honk when you pass someone so they don’t swerve into you, and you honk to thank them for letting you pass, you honk to scare cows out of the road, and also honk on blind turns.

We soon reached a checkpoint and this time they were looking for two red traffic triangles. Mamadou was having trouble finding them and I thought it was just a scam by the police to get a bribe (that happened a lot to me in Zimbabwe a few years ago). But eventually we found the triangles and kept going.

I thought the jungle dirt road was rough, but it got even worse when we hit stretches of pavement. The pavement was riddled with deep potholes with sharp edges. The general technique was go as fast as possible between potholes (as far as I could tell there was no speed limit and no speed enforcement), then swerve half on the shoulder to get around them. The shoulders had deep dropoffs from the pavement and the Landcruiser would tip very far.

Just outside Kindia we got our first flat tire of the trip. I think it was from junk in the shoulder. Mamadou couldn’t find the tool to get the spare tire off the roof, but luckily I’d brought vise grips and those worked fine. Unfortunately we only had one spare, so needed to stop at the next town to get the flat patched. Fortunately, though, essentially every town and village has people that can patch tires quickly, since flat tires are so common.

We made it to Mamou and stopped to do some errands. We first tried to exchange some US dollars for Guinea Francs with some of Mamadou’s contacts, but they only wanted big bills and didn’t give us a good rate. So we went to an ATM to withdraw more. The ATMs in Guinea only spit out 20,000 franc notes (about 2 USD) and give a maximum of 800,000 francs (80USD). So we each needed to do multiple withdrawals to get enough. This resulted in some pretty thick stacks of bills. We had a bunch of USD and Serge went inside the bank to exchange this.

Then we went across the street to the Orange Mobile store and each got sim cards for our phone (we had arrived too late at the airport to get them there). While we were waiting Mamadou dropped off the tire to get it patched. We then stopped at a shop to get shawarmas. By the time we’d done all our errands it was 5pm. In order to stay on schedule we really needed to make it to Faranah that night, which was still five hours away.

The problem was Mamdou and others told us some rural areas in Guinea are dangerous to drive at night. At night people will dress up as police and act like they are manning a checkpoint but they will actually rob you. During the day there is enough traffic that this doesn’t happen, but if you are the only vehicle on a lonely stretch of road at night away from villages it can be risky. Sunset was around 7pm and sunrise at 6am, so 5am-8pm were the safer times to drive. Apparently it’s ok to drive at night a bit early in the morning since if you get stopped it will only be a short time before it gets light and other people drive by to make it safer.

Mamadou thought this particular stretch of road approaching Faranah was safe enough to push through a bit at night. So we headed east. The road was partially paved with numerous potholes and cracked sections, so progress was only around 15-20mph. By 10pm we made it to Faranah and got the last room in a hotel. The lights didn’t really work and the water didn’t work, but we could take bucket showers and use our headlamps and make it work out. There was only one bed so Serge slept on the floor. Mamadou had a friend in town he stayed with.

Dec 21

We got moving at 7am the next morning and amazingly the roads were paved and in excellent shape all the way to Kissidougou. We stopped there to add a few gigs of data to our sim cards at an Orange Mobile booth, which are in every town and village. From there the road quality deteriorated, but we occasionally passed road construction crews laying new pavement. There would always be one Chinese guy directing a bunch of local guys doing the construction. This looked to be part of China’s Belt and Road initiative, where they fund road improvements in Africa that will help them extract resources from the country. We must have been on a stretch of road connecting some sort of mine to the nearest port (in Sierra Leone or Liberia).

We continued to Macenta, through some dense jungle, and on to Nzerekore by late afternoon. We stopped at a restaurant there next to a library and ate beef and potatoes. Interestingly there was no sign for the restaurant and I’m not sure how someone would find it without already knowing it was there.

On maps.me I found a hotel listed at Seringbara village, where we planned to meet the guide the next morning. Serge called them up and they said they had room, so we continued driving another hour to the village. Seringbara was very small, and I’m pretty sure the hotel is only there to accomodate visitors to the nature reserve. It was very nice, and only $5 per room. So we splurged and each took our own room. Adam told me the guide would meet us in the middle of the village at 8am the next morning, and the hike up Richard-Molard would take about 8 hours. So we planned to get up at 7am and started walking over at 7:30am.

Dec 22

I was up at 7am and someone knocked on my door at 7:15am. I went outside and Serge was talking to two people that looked like guides. They were not happy. They said we were supposed to start the hike at 4am and it would take 12 hours round trip. They were concerned now there wouldn’t be enough time to finish.

We explained to them that Adam had told us to start at 8am, but apparently there had been a miscommunication. At any rate, we needed to wait for an official park person (Bary) to come check our passports before we were permitted to go. The guides called Bary and he soon came over.

He said there was no problem and told the guides to take us up. He didn’t check our passports, but I had paid for three people for Dec 22 and we were the only three white people there, so it was pretty obvious we were who we said we were. He was clearly the boss and the guides were soon leading us up by 7:45am. Interestingly, I later learned that Bary had come all the way from Conakry on busses and bush taxis for two days just so he could make sure we got to do our hike. I think the reserve doesn’t see too many tourists (especially since Covid and the coup d’etat happened), so it doesn’t make sense for him to stay in Seringbara.

The first guide (I can’t remember his name) had a machete and looked like he knew what he was doing. He said he’d been to Richard Molard before. The second guide, Kamara, hadn’t been there before but was accompanying in the rear. We walked through some banana plantations outside of the village and Kamara set a very fast pace. He was carrying absolutely nothing but the clothes on his back, and it was tough for me to keep up with my big pack full of the survey equipment.

Eventually the other guide took over and set a more reasonable pace. We eventually crested a hill at the edge of the banana plantation and dropped down into the jungle. I think that was the official park boundary. We followed a faint trail, crossed a creek, and then reached a clearing with two tarp tents set up after an hour. The guides stopped for a smoke break, but Serge made sure we were moving again after five minutes. We were worried if it indeed took 12 hours we might get back late, and wanted to minimize delays.

We climbed higher up the faint trail through the jungle, and eventually popped out on a steep grassy slope above the trees. It’s interesting that the trees don’t grow above that height, though it isn’t very high (only around 5,000ft). We made it steeply up, then followed a spur to just below the ridgecrest. There we found a small treed area and stopped for a break.

Serge got attacked by some vicious ants and we all helped brush them off. It looked painful and we were all very careful where we sat down after that. From there we climbed another steep grassy slope and emerged on the ridge crest that marks the boundary between Guinea and Cote D’Ivoire. There was a nice little trail along the crest and we continued north.

Serge explained that I wanted to set up a GPS unit on the summit for one hour to take a measurement. In order to save time he asked if I could hurry ahead, then set up the system while the others caught up. The guides agreed, and I soon jogged up along the ridge ahead of everyone. I was pushing it pretty hard, and soon made it to what I though was the false summit. But there were a bunch of cairns on it.

There was another peak about 500m away farther north along the ridge that peakbagger marks as the summit, but it looked about the same height. I took out my surveyor sight level, crouched down, and measured the other summit. I measured the northern one a little bit shorter, with a 0.2-degree declination down to the summit. This means it was about 2m shorter. I took ten separate measurements to make certain, and each time I got the same result, so I’m confident the southern peak, with the cairns, is the true summit of Mt Richard-Molard.

I quickly set up the tripod and GPS unit and started the measurements. The first guide with the machete soon reached the top, and then the rest of the crew came. We hung out for a while admiring the excellent views into Cote D’Ivoire and across Guinea. It looked like a lot of jungle on both sides of the ridge, and I’ve heard of a few people coming up from the Cote D’Ivoire side also. Interestingly, there were some buildings far north along the ridge, and I’m not sure exactly what they are for. They are likely just outside the reserve, though, and I would guesss have to do with mining based on the satellite images.

After the hour measurement was completed we packed up and headed down. We were all out of water but fortunately there was a spring just below the summit. We filled up our bottles and continued down. It had only taken four hours up, so it appeared we would beat the 12 hour round trip estimate. (After post processing we measured the orthometric elevation of Mt Richard-Molard as 1744.135m +/-0.063m).

We retraced our route back, descending back to the jungle and hiking out through the banana plantation. By 4:45pm we made it back to Seringbara for a nine hour round trip. I think the guides were worn out and surprised to get back so early. We gave them tips, found Mamadou, and then headed out.

That evening we made it to Nzerekore and started looking for a hotel. The first one we found sounded like a good deal for us three to squeeze into a room. But then the owner said the policy was multiple people of the same sex are not allowed in the same room (I think this is because of homophobia in West Africa). So he insisted we much each have our own room. We weren’t willing to pay three times the price, so we left and found another hotel where we were allowed to split the room. We got a good rest that night and started planning for our next peak, the Senegal highpoint.

The measurement results are summarized below. The southern peak of Mt Richard-Molard is officially the highpoint of Guinea and Cote D’Ivoire.  Note- these are given as PPP ellipsoidal height results with 95% confidence interval (RMSE), and corresponding orthometric height, as processed by Compass Data engineers using Online Positioning User Service. Orthometric height is the final height. Contact me if you are interested in more details of the post processing or would like to see the raw data.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2022 – 2023, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.