Rwanda – Volcan Karisimbi

Volcan Karisimbi (14,826 ft)

Eric Gilbertson and Travis Greiman

August 3-5, 2018

Aug 3 – arrive in Kigali, drive to Ruhengeri
Aug 4 – hike to high camp at 11kft
Aug 5 – summit Karisimbi, return to Kigali
Aug 6 – flight to Bujumbura

Travis and I were in East Africa for a few weeks hitting country highpoints, with the primary objective of climbing Mt Stanley, the Uganda/DRC highpoint. Mt Stanley is tall enough to require proper acclimation, so to increase our chance of success we decided to climb the lower Mt Karisimbi first to help acclimate. We chose to climb in the first half of August because this is in the July-mid-September dry season in this region of Africa.

Mt Karisimbi is within Volcanoes National Park, and by law a guide is required for any ascent. I tried contacting the park headquarters to arrange a guide in advance, but had no luck reaching a person. The next option was to use one of the tour companies to arrange a guide and permits. I knew this would be more expensive, but also gave us more certainty since we needed to have our schedule nailed down weeks in advance.

All guiding services I contacted stated that it was “not possible” to do the ascent car-to-car in one day, even though the hike would physically have been quite doable for me and Travis. It wasn’t clear whether this was a park requirement, or a statement that most people cannot physically do the hike in a day. However, since we were hoping to use this mountain as acclimation for Mt Stanley anyway, it actually made sense to make it into a two-day trip so we could sleep at high elevation one night.

The cheapest tour operator I could find was Bambou Tours, and I arranged the logistics over email with Patience. Bambou Tours provided a rental car and arranged the guide and permits with the park, as well as providing a rental tent. (Travis and I were each trying to go light with just carry-on luggage, so opted not to bring our own tent). Payment was half in advance by wire transfer, and the other half consisted of me buying Patience a used Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphone on ebay. It sounds like it’s tough to get new electronics in Rwanda.

Our flight landed at Kigali, Rwanda on the evening of August 3, and we soon met Patience outside the small airport. He drove us to a nearby hotel and we then transferred our luggage to a rental car. Travis took over the wheel and we then followed Patience to the Bambou Tour headquarters. Here we picked up the rental tent, and saw an option to rent a stove. However, the stove required an enormous 20-pound propane tank and pots and pans. I assume most people hire a porter to carry this. We decided to just eat dry food for the one night on the mountain.

From the office we followed Patience in the Bambou Tours van, driving for about 1.5 hours through windy roads to

the town of Ruhengeri near the park entrance. We spent the night at the Ruhengeri Gardens hotel, and drove about 15 minutes to the park entrance in the morning.

There were a lot of other westerners at the park, mostly all getting ready for gorilla treks. We picked up our permit and learned that we had been combined with a group of two other hikers from France. I would normally be concerned about other people slowing me down, but this hike was so short, and we were splitting it into two days anyways, that it wasn’t a big deal. I still confirmed with the guide, though, that on summit day we wanted to be able to split up if necessary so we could still summit.

I later learned the main reason the park combined small groups like this. It’s not because there is a lack of guides. It’s because all trips to Karisimbi now also need a military escort. Recently this year a few British tourists on a gorilla trek in the DRC were kidnapped near the Rwanda border. Mt Karisimbi is on the DRC/Rwanda border, near where the British tourists were kidnapped, and the park wants to be very careful that nothing like that ever happens in Rwanda.

In total our group had 15 soldiers accompanying us, and this is the reason small groups are combined. The guides told us the soldiers were to protect us from the water buffalo, but we knew the real reason they were there.

Around 11am we left the park headquarters with Patience in the car and drove about 30 minutes to the trailhead. The last two miles were on very rough road that required high clearance, and Patience told us we were getting the African massage on this road.

At the trailhead a group of porters greeted us, and Patience told us we could each get a porter for $20 per day. I know hiring porters supports the local economy, but I could not persuade myself to pay someone to carry my own pack on a one-night trip when I had very little gear. I could see hiring a porter for a big expedition with lots of technical gear and weeks of food, but this made no sense in this case. So both Travis and I opted to carry our own gear, while the French couple hired some porters to help with theirs.

We soon started up the trail, hiking through farmers’ fields to the edge of the jungle, where we met the military

escort waiting for us. From there we followed a trail into the jungle, passing through low thorny growth, then eventually into areas of large trees with moss hanging off the branches. Our guide pointed out some fresh 2-hour-old gorilla poop on the trail, though unfortunately this was the only sign of gorillas we saw on the whole trip.

We ascended higher, until we reached the col between Mt — and Mt Karisimbi, and got some great views of the other volcanoes in the park. The guide told us that recently a tourist came and climbed the 5 volcanoes in 5 days, which was some sort of speed record. This makes me think it is possible to find a guide that will let you ascend Karisimbi car-to-car, though I’m not sure exactly how to find such a guide.

Eventually we reached an open meadow and took a lunch break. Mt Karisimbi was mostly in the clouds, but once in a while a view cleared out. We could make out that it was above treeline and that there was a massive radio tower on the summit. Neither Travis nor I expected this tower, especially since there is no road to the summit from either the DRC or Rwanda. Our guide told us that all the materials had been brought up on porters’ backs over the past few years, and it was still not completed.

I was hoping to see some snow on the summit, but it was too hard to tell with all the clouds. We would have to wait until we got higher. An hour or so later we reached the campsite at —-ft, near the edge of treeline. The jungle had changed to mostly dendro senacio trees (which look a lot like Joshua trees from the US) and lobelia plants (which look like yucca plants). There was an option to continue to the summit that evening, but the weather looked pretty unsettled and the consensus was to wait for sunrise and the potential for better weather.

There was a small wooden structure with a wooden floor, and we set up our tents inside. Next to the structure was a smaller metal building big enough to sleep about five people, with straw on the floor. This was where the soldiers would sleep. Throughout the night most of the soldiers would be standing guard around the camp, while some would take turns sleeping.

After we arrived the soldiers immediately began collecting firewood. The official park policy is that any firewood must be carried in and wood in the park must remain undisturbed. One porter did haul in some firewood, but it was nowhere near enough for the soldiers to keep multiple fires going all night. I guess the security situation takes precedent over preserving the fragile environment up there.

Travis and I ate our dry dinner, while the guide and porters cooked a potato dish and shared some with us. We played a card game called elevator with the French couple and the guide that night before getting an early sleep. It rained and thundered that night, and we were happy to have the metal roof over our heads, even in the tent.

The next morning we were up and moving by sunrise, and split into two groups: Travis and I with one guide, and the French couple with another guide. Half the soldiers went ahead of us, while the remainder stayed at camp. We soon ascended above treeline, and then above the grassline. By 9am we reached the summit, which was covered with a fresh inch of snow from the night before. There was even some rime ice built up on the rocks.

There was a small building next to the radio tower, which could be used as an emergency shelter or guard station, and a green sign reading Mt Karisimbi under the tower. The true highpoint was a short walk to the right of the tower, and we took a break there. The clouds briefly parted, and we could peer down into the jungles of the DRC below to the west. We had great views of the other volcanoes and farmland of Rwanda to the east.

The French couple soon joined, and we ate snacks at the summit. It was surprisingly cold, given how close the mountain is to the equator, but it is at a quite high altitude. After getting a few more pictures we headed down, with the soldiers bringing up the rear.

We soon collected our gear at the campsite and continued down the trail back into the jungle. Near the trailhead was passed another group of eight hikers heading up to Karisimbi, and the soldiers turned around to accompany this group up the mountain. I imagine one of the main logistics duties of the park office is to make sure there is always an armed escort available for a group heading up the mountain.

By early afternoon we were back at the trailhead and Patience was waiting with the car. We drove back to Kigali that evening and stayed in a hotel, before flying out early the next morning to our next destination, Bujumbura, Burundi.