In 1888 African explorer Henry Morton Stanley saw a peculiar looking cloud in an otherwise unobstructed Ugandan sky. While he eventually realized that this object was not a cloud, but the sixth tallest mountain in America, the mountain was not fully ascended until 1906 when Luigi Amedeo, an Italian prince and mountaineer led the first successful mission to the top. Where dense vegetation and disease made climbing the mountain, it is now plagued by political turmoil. Since Museveni took power in 1986, rebel uprisings have diminished, but reports of "cannibals with AK-47s" still circulate today.
Mt. Stanley is one of the only peaks in Africa which still contains extensive glaciation. The mountain consists of two twin summits at around 16,700 feet and several smaller peaks that are all part of the Rwenzori range. It is often hailed as one of the most beautiful mountains in the world, and is located involves a 6 day hike through the wilderness that prompted made Amedeo feel like he was in a different world:
“No forest can be grimmer and stranger than this. The vegetation seems primeval, of some period when forms were uncertain and provisory. The silence is profound, and the absence of any sign of life completes the image of a remote age before the beginning of animal existence.”
PS. If anyone has any advice, comments or requests for what they would like to see on mountain descriptions or this blog in general feel free to post.
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