Mount Elgon National Park Day 1

My team for the mountain consisted of 2 guides, Fred and Francis and my porter, Fred. For once some easy names to remember! The reason for the 2 guides are in case one guide falls ill or is out of commission, it doesn't cost anymore. Fred's fee for portering up to 18kg of gear is a 8000 Ush ($4US) a day, not much at all really for more enjoyment of the trek. I only carried my camera, Ipod, book, journal and some personal stuff. I wasn't going on this trek without some things to do at camp.

Fred, the guide and I were the first on the trail. Fred let me walk first so I could dictate the pace. I always have to walk my own pace and believe everyone should be allowed to walk their own pace. The trail began through cultivated land and some small huts, we weren't out of civilization yet. Almost an hour later we reached the last hut, where you can purchase a coke. I was drenched in sweat because there was no shade but I felt good. When we sat down at the hut Fred was impressed. He said I was strong and asked if I was a 'sportsman'. I told him my job back home was very physical and I also mountain bike but in reality, I hadn't done either of these things much for 3 weeks before I left, I just had energy. From this last hut the trail became very steep. No switchbacks here, just straight up the mountain! After 30 minutes of this we came to the beginning of the forest. I was so glad too, the sun was burning me up. The forest was at an altitude of around 1800M and in it grew many plants I recognized. On the forest fringes was a huge and attractive orange flowered butterfly bush, which I had never seen before. On the floor of the forest were impatiens, begonias, flowering maple ( I think), ageratum, coleus, nasturtium,kniphofia ( red hot poker), and many ferns. The dominant forest tree was Hagenia with some Podocarpus thrown in to mix it up. It was satisfying to look around the forest and actually know what I was looking at. I was actually telling Fred what plants were what and he knew some of the ones I didn't. I've been to many lowland tropical rainforest, different than this forest, where the plants on the forest floor are hardly distinguishable. The only reason I recognized these plants is that they were in flower. There's not too many plants that I know by foliage alone. The trail became less steep and wide. After an hour we reached the first camp site, Sasa river.

We arrived at camp at 11.40am. The camp contained a small cooking hut and spaces for tents in the forest. The Sasa river, actually a small 2 m wide stream, flowed beside camp and offered pure drinking water. I ate my lunch of cashews, fibre cookies and chocolate bar ( the UWA office told me to buy 'prepared food' for lunch, no cooking required). Fred and the guy's lunch was taking a while and by 1pm, they were still not ready to go. It was my choice to either spend the night at this camp or carry on for another 3 hours to the next camp. Since it was early I decided to carry on to Mude camp. I was ready to go and wanted to burn the energy I got from my lunch and told Fred I would start on the trail to the next camp. I said I would walk slow and take many pictures. He said ' Don't go far.', but I just kept walking, the trail was cleary visible.I saw one black and white colobus monkey in the trees before I got to a zone of mixed bamboo and giant flowering lobelias, really cool stuff. The inflorescence was 1m long on a 5m high plant. Fred caught up at 45 minutes. I could see the forest changing as we climbed higher and higher. It's really something tangible to see the forest change before your eyes. We left the forest after about 2900m and entered the heath zone of mostly Erica shrubs. The temperature was also dropping. We were out in the open now and it started to sprinkle a little. At this altitude we were litterally in the clouds but I was confident it wouldn't be a full blown rain and didn't put on my raincoat. Thankfully I was right. We reached a remote ranger station at 3300m. Here I signed a guestbook and gave the ranger my receipts. He lives at this station for a month or 2 at a time. It must a cold and lonely life, I thought.

We landed at Mude camp, altitude - 3500M, at 3.40pm, 6 hours and 40 minutes after starting our hiking, including our 1.5 hour lunch stop. We had covered 11km. Mude camp contained 2 cooking huts, one of which Fred said I could pitch my tent inside. I was very surprised to see a brand spanking new A frame hut. It was totally empty except for the 2 Belgian hikers using it to sleep in. The Belgians were Carl and Ann and were the only other hikers at the site. They had come up the way I would be going down. The camp had some cover from the Erica shrubs and a very, very small stream. I pitched my tent in the hut, walls and roof stained black with the smoke of countless fires. I read and relaxed and chatted with the Belgians. The temperature was 11 C. When the sun set it got even colder. I had instant noodles and tuna for dinner for my 4 nights. It was ready in 4 minutes, I only needed boiling water, which they usually had on hand in the cooking hut. Carl, Ann and I had our own private fire away from the cooking hut. Though it was considerably warmer in the cooking hut, I was being subjected to eye tokes of smoke every few minutes and choose to mostly stay outside. The guides and porters stayed in the hut all the time and would also be sleeping in there. I don't know how they did it.
The moon rose high in the sky as soon as the sun set and unfortunately was too bright for the stars to be any good. We all called in quits at about 8pm and went to bed. I watched some Simpsons and Happy Tree Friends on my ipod. I was comfy in my tent but started to get cold. The rented sleeping bag wasn't cutting it. I thought it would be fine because they know how cold it gets but it wasn't. Slowly but surely, garment by garment, I started adding on clothes. I usually like to only sleep in my boxers, that's how I started out. Then came the socks, then a long sleeve shirt and finally my pants. The sleeping bag had a good hood cover and I had this tight around my head and only my lips protruded from the cold cocoon. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well.