Rwenzori Mountains
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The Rwenzori (also known as the Ruwenzori, Rwenzururu or Rwenjura) are a range of mountains in eastern equatorial Africa, located on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The highest peak of the Ruwenzori reaches Template:Convert, and the range's upper regions are permanently snow-capped and glaciated. Rivers fed by mountain streams form one of the sources of the Nile.<ref name="readersnatural"/> Because of this, European explorers linked the Ruwenzori with the legendary Mountains of the Moon, claimed by the Greek scholar Ptolemy as the source of the Nile. Virunga National Park in eastern DR Congo and Rwenzori Mountains National Park in southwestern Uganda are located within the range.
Geology
The mountains formed about three million years ago in the late Pliocene epoch and are the result of an uplifted block of crystalline rocks including gneiss, amphibolite, granite and quartzite.<ref name="ucl">Template:Cite web</ref>
The Rwenzori mountains are the highest non-volcanic, non-orogenic mountains in the world.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
This uplift divided the paleolake Obweruka and created three of the present-day African Great Lakes: Lake Albert, Lake Edward,<ref name="ucl" /> and Lake George.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
The range is about Template:Convert long and Template:Convert wide. It consists of six massifs separated by deep gorges: Mount Stanley (Template:Convert), Mount Speke (Template:Convert), Mount Baker (Template:Convert), Mount Emin (Template:Convert), Mount Gessi (Template:Convert) and Mount Luigi di Savoia (Template:Convert).<ref name="Abruzzi">Template:Cite web</ref> Mount Stanley has several subsidiary summits, with Margherita Peak being the highest point.
Human history
The mountains are occasionally identified with the legendary "Mountains of the Moon", described in antiquity as the source of the Nile River.<ref name="readersnatural">Template:Cite book</ref> Modern European explorers observed the range beginning in the late nineteenth century, with Samuel Baker reporting what he called the "Blue Mountains" looming in the distance in 1864, and Henry M. Stanley visiting the range in 1875 and 1888, when he recorded the name as "Ruwenzori".<ref name="NYT Abruzzi">Template:Cite news</ref>
In 1906, the Duke of Abruzzi mounted an expedition to the Ruwenzori, the account of which was subsequently published by Filippo De Filippi. The expedition scaled the highest peaks of the range, several of which were named by the duke, while Mount Luigi di Savoia was named in his honour.<ref name="NYT Abruzzi"/> Accompanying the duke was photographer Vittorio Sella, who had previously visited the mountains. His photographs of the glaciers and moraines of the Ruwenzori demonstrated that the glaciers were already in retreat.<ref name="NYT Abruzzi"/><ref name="rwenzoriabruzzi">Template:Cite web</ref> Sella's photographic work is conserved at the Museo Nazionale della Montagna in Turin and at the Istituto di Fotografia Alpina Vittorio Sella in Biella, both in Italy. The Makerere University, Uganda, also has a selection of his images.<ref name="flowers">Flowers of the Moon, Afroalpine vegetation of the Rwenzori Mountains Template:Webarchive, Schutyser S., 2007, 5 Continents Editions, Template:ISBN.</ref>
The first traverse of the six massifs of the Ruwenzori was done in 1975, starting on 27 January and ending on 13 February. The traverse was done by Polish climbers Janusz Chalecki, Stanisław Cholewa and Leszek S. Czarnecki, with Mirosław Kuraś accompanying them on the last half of the traverse.<ref name=taternik>Wielka Grań Ruwenzori 1975, Wojtera T., Taternik iss 3. 1976.</ref>
Since Uganda's independence from the British Empire, the Rwenzori Mountains have repeatedly become sanctuaries to rebel groups. The secessionist Rwenzururu movement fought an insurgency in the mountains in the 1960s.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In course of the Ugandan Bush War, the Rwenzururu movement reemerged and continued its struggle until signing a peace deal with Ugandan President Milton Obote's government.<ref name="Forrest">Template:Cite book</ref> In the Bush War's later stages, the National Resistance Army (NRA) rebel force operated in the mountains. After the NRA seized power in Uganda in 1986,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> another civil war broke out. This time, the Rwenzori Mountains hosted the bases of the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU)Template:Sfn and the "Partie de Liberation Congolaise" (PLC), an anti-Mobutu rebel group.Template:Sfn In the early 1990s, a Congolese rebel group known as the National Council of Resistance for Democracy (Conseil National de Résistance pour la Démocratie, CNRD) led by André Kisase Ngandu began to wage an insurgency against Mobutu from the Rwenzori Mountains.Template:Sfn
Militias aligned with the old Rwenzururu movement's ideology occupied the Rwenzori Mountains from 1997 to June 2001.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2020, after being defeated across the border by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, some elements of the Allied Democratic Forces moved into the Rwenzori Mountains.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Natural history
Flora
The Ruwenzori are known for their vegetation, ranging from tropical rainforest through alpine meadows to snow. The range supports its own species and varieties of giant groundsel and giant lobelia and even has a Template:Convert tall heather covered in moss that lives on one of its peaks. Most of the range is now a World Heritage Site and is covered jointly by Rwenzori Mountains National Park in southwestern Uganda and the Virunga National Park in the eastern Congo.<ref name="Abruzzi"/>
There is no water shortage in the Ruwenzori; yet, several members of the afro-alpine family resemble species that normally thrive in desert climates. The reason lies in their similar water economy. Water is not always readily available to the afroalpine plants when they need it. In addition, nightly frosts affect the sap transport in the plants and the intake of water by its roots. As the day begins, the air temperature and radiation level rise rapidly, putting strenuous demands on the exposed parts of the plants as they try to meet the transpiration demands of the leaves and maintain a proper water balance. To counter the effects of freezing, the afro-alpine plants have developed the insulation systems that give them such a striking appearance. These adaptations become more prominent as the elevation increases.<ref name=flowers/>
There are five overlapping vegetation zones in the Ruwenzori: the evergreen forest zone (up to Template:Convert); the bamboo zone (Template:Convert); the heather zone (Template:Convert); the alpine zone (Template:Convert); and, the nival zone (Template:Convert). At higher elevations, some plants reach an unusually large size, such as lobelia and groundsels. The vegetation in the Ruwenzori is unique to equatorial alpine Africa.<ref name="systbot">Template:Cite web</ref>
Sources:<ref name="systbot"/><ref name="unep">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="fao-forest">Template:Cite web</ref>
Glacial recession
An ongoing concern is the impact of climate change on the Ruwenzori's glaciers. In 1906, forty-three named glaciers were distributed over six mountains with a total area of Template:Convert, about half the total glacier area in Africa. By 2005, less than half of these were still present, on only three mountains, with an area of about Template:Convert. Recent scientific studies, such as those by Richard Taylor of University College London, have attributed this retreat to global climate change and have investigated the impact of this change on the mountain's vegetation and biodiversity.<ref name="Taylor2006">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Tom Knudson, In the Mountains of the Moon, A Trek to Africa’s Last Glaciers, Yale Environment 360 Report, 4 February 2010</ref><ref>[Rwenzori Glaciers (East Africa)], Tropical Glaciology Group, Innsbruck University</ref> In 2012, 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2025; Klaus Thymann led expeditions with the environmental charity Project Pressure creating comparative photographs to visually document the glacier recession, the findings were published in global media including BBC One Planet,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Guardian<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Yale Environment 360.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The alteration can be seen in comparative images. As the temperature rises and the glaciers recede, vegetation slowly creeps up the mountain.
In 2025, Project Pressure created the world's first 3D model of the Ugandan glaciers on Mount Stanley using drone photography and GPS coordinates.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> They found that the surface area of the Stanley Plateau glacier fell by 29.5% between 2020 and 2024. During the drone survey, the exhibition also discovered an accessible ice cave.
See also
Notes
References
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- Glaciers of the Middle East and Africa, Williams, Richard S. Jr. (editor) In: U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper, 1991, pp.G1-G70
- Guide to the Ruwenzori, Osmaston, H.A., Pasteur, D. 1972, Mountain Club of Uganda. 200 p.
- Recession of Equatorial Glaciers. A Photo Documentation, Hastenrath, S., 2008, Sundog Publishing, Madison, WI, Template:ISBN, 144 pp.
- Tropical Glaciers, Kaser, G., Osmaston, H.A. 2002, Cambridge University Press, UK. 207 p.
- Ruwenzori, De Filippi, F. 1909. Constable, London. 408 p.
- Greenpeace article "The Death of the Ice Giants"
- BBC Article "Fabled ice field set to vanish"
- Dr Taylor's Homepage, with information about the impact of climate change on Ruwenzori.
- Kaser et al. 2006, in International Book of Climatology 24: 329–339 (2004)
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External links
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- UWM.edu: 1937 aerial photographs of Rwenzori Mountains – University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries Digital Collections.
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