Itinerary

1. Day 1: Transfer from Kampala or Entebbe to kilembe Kasese .

   • Meet your tour guide upon arrival either at your hotel in Entebbe or from the airport and drive to Kasese, the nearest town to Rwenzori Mountains National Park. The drive journey will take approximately 8 hours with a lunch stopover in the fort portal and then your journey to kilembe. 
   • Check-in at Sand ton Hotel to have dinner and overnight stay.

2. Day 2: Transfer the starting point of Sine Camp ( Kilembe Trail Headquarters)

   • Start at Trekkers at 1,450 meters after breakfast and sleep at Sine Hut at 2,596 meters, being a height gain of 1,146 meters, or those who are fit and want to proceed to Kalalama Camp at 3,134 metres may do so and apart from the fantastic views gives you more time at Mutinda Camp where you may climb up to Mutinda Lookout at 3,975 metres. 
   • Start by walking up the valley floor through tall forest trees of the Afro Montane Forest Zone. This is a steady climb with multitudes of birds and a chance of seeing blue monkeys scampering off through the forest. Visitors may sometimes see troupes of 15 to 20 black and white Colobus monkeys as they swing through the treetops. There are rare sightings of the L’Hoest monkey, which are part of the Bukonzo cultural emblems and are protected by the King or Omusinga, or you may hear a wild chimpanzee in the distance. There is a wide variety of plant species from forest trees to bamboos thickets, low shrubs, flowers, fungi, and many mosses and lichen-covered vines hanging from the tall trees, creating a great appeal. Enock’s Falls are just 200 meters from Sine Hut and offer a splendid opportunity to capture a fantastic screensaver for your memories. 
   • Sit on wooden huts set at Sine Camp 2,596 metres. We have wooden huts set between tall forest trees on a narrow ridge.

3. Day 3: Climb to Mutinda Camp

   • Trekking starts at 8.30 am, and almost immediately, you enter the Bamboo-Mimulopsis Zone, a steep climb with many high steps. In the wet season, the bamboo zone is rather muddy and slippery, making the going slow. However, the atmosphere and the forest are beautiful as you climb 551 metres altitude and a distance of 1.8km to Kalalama Camp at 3,147 meters which is in the Heather-Rapanea Zone, where you can rest and a quick cup of tea or coffee before heading on to Mutinda Camp. The trail meanders up and over several small knolls along a ridge top, then drops down the side of the valley before climbing again, and in doing so, crosses several small streams and passes close to moss covered waterfalls. 
   • Then climb steadily along the side of a beautiful mossy river that tumbles over the rocks under the Giant Heather trees whose trunks are covered in green moss with old man beards (Usnea lichen) hanging from the branches. The trail twists and turns as you climb up the deep valley, which has an enormous variety of plants and flowers. This valley is unique, with many Giant Heather trees creating a beautiful atmosphere often shrouded in mist. You may wish to climb up to the top of the Mutinda Lookout (one to two hours up and one hour down). The views are amazing as you stand on moss-covered rocks at 3,925 meters, across the Rwenzori Mountains and down to Kasese town and Lake George. For those clients who are clo Margherita or any of the prominent peaks climbing Mutinda 3,975 meters is also an excellent way to acclimatise and reduce the risk of high altitude sickness.

4. Day 4: Trek to Bugata Camp

   • Cross the Mutinda valley through the tussock grass and everlasting flowers interspersed with many Giant Lobelias before climbing a steep section up to the Namusangi Valley (3,840 meters); with sheer waterfalls looking back, you get fantastic views of Mutinda Peaks. The Namusangi Valley is wide, with many ups and downs as the trail climbs steadily to Bugata Camp at 4,100 metres.

5. Day 5: Hike to Hunwik's Camp

   • Trek to Hunwick’s Camp via Bamwanjarra Pass. As you leave Bugata Camp, you pass up a ridge and then drop down slightly before ascending to Bamwanjarra Pass at 4,450 meters, where we have a hut should the weather turn nasty. From the pass on a clear day, you get excellent views of the three prominent peaks. 
   • Enjoy the trail passes down the valley and around the edge of some bogs, thick evergreen vegetation, and moss. giant groundsel and lobelia. Here is possibly the best place in all the Rwenzori to observe the Malachite Sunbird as it feeds on the many lobelia flowers and is a known breeding site. There are some steep sections before a steady climb up and over a ridge to Hunwick's Camp, which is situated on the top of a deep valley and has good views of Mt Stanley, Mt Baker, Weismann's Peak and McConnell’s Prong.

6. Day 6: Hunwick’s Camp - Margherita Camp (4,485 m.)

   • Go Mountain Rwenzori Hiking in Uganda.  This is the most crucial walk of this hike to the Margherita camp, which will be followed by making it to the summit the following day.
   • Take a walk along the ridge before crossing several wet areas, and small rivers from Mt Baker and Fresh fields Pass. 
   • Then, walk up to Scott Elliott Pass, which is enjoyable as you climb through the pass and up the ridge of Mt Stanley to Margherita Camp at 4,485 meters below Elena Hut of the Rwenzori mountaineering services. A ring of high rocks shelters it, and it is the original camp used by the Italian Prince Luigi Amadeo di Savoia, Duke of the Abruzzi. You have great views of Mt Baker, Scott Elliot Pass and some of the high glaciers on Mt Stanley. 
   • The day’s hike to this camp is 4.2 kilometres. 
   • Reach the camp late in the evening and relax a little bit. 
   • Then, prepare and go through what will transpire the following summiting day. So this exercise will entail preparing the ropes, the hiking shoes, ice-breaking axes, and crampons. So you will pass through how to use this equipment and attires. Then you will retire to your cabins for a night.

7. Day 7: Transfer to Kiharo Camp

   • Start the day by climbing up a ridge towards McConnell’s Prong, where you get the best views of all three peaks and Scott Elliott’s Pass before reaching Oliver’s Pass at 4,505 metres. The distance from Hunwick’s Camp to the top of Olivers Pass is 3km. The trail then cuts across below Weismann’s Peak to the confluence of the Nyamwamba River, which flows down through Kilembe and Kasese to Lake George in Queen Elisabeth National Park. 
   • After crossing the confluence, the trail meanders down the valley to Kiharo Camp, situated in a deep valley with high cliffs and dense vegetation. On the way down the valley, after each bog, you will climb over a ridge of stones and earth that seems out of place but was pushed there by slow-moving glaciers, which eventually stopped moving, melted and left a pile of rocks and debris in front of where the glacier once stood. Kiharo Camp on Mountain Rwenzori

8. Day 8: Descend to the Base

   • Cover the distance from Kiharo Camp to the park gate, which is 12.2km and another 2.8km down to Trekkers Hostel Time to walk 5 to 8 hours, so those who need to connect to flights back to Kampala or travel on to other activities need to leave Kiharo early. The trail down the Nyamwamba Valley is mostly downhill and stunning with beautiful views, moss-covered rocks along the river, cascading waterfalls, deep valleys and forests that are possibly the best in the Rwenzori Mountains. This part of the trail took us six years to find a way through an easy route for tourists to use. In 1937 the explorer and geologist McConnell tried to find a way up this valley but failed and had to turn back and search for another route up the mountain. Now you can experience this truly beautiful valley. 
   • A few kilometres from Kiharo Camp, the path turns off to the right to pass along the river. You may catch a glimpse of a Duiker quietly feeding in small clearings as you pass along the river in the transparent areas. If you wish, you may prefer to walk down the river itself, hopping across the rocks as you pass down. A few kilometres down the river, it becomes very steep with multitudes of waterfalls, so we have to move away from the river and follow a narrow ridge to bypass steep sections. At the bottom, we again meet the river, where there is a vast rock shelter and a place to rest for a while.

   You will find the tour guide waiting to pick you up from the base and transfer you to the hotel for Dinner and overnight at Sandton Hotel.

9. Day 9: Kasese - Kampala

   • Have breakfast and start the drive back to Kampala for the flight home.