Personal Experiences
Curt Reintsma, Director, USAID Malawi:My daughter Nicole, Devina (a friend
of a work colleague) and I recently decided to climb Mount Mulanje and attempt to summit Sapitwa Peak, the
highest in Malawi at 3000 meters.
First, a few facts: Mount Mulanje is not a single mountain, but a “massif”; a high plateau
covering 640 sq. kms., with 21 separate peaks on top. Sapitwa is the highest but not necessarily the most
difficult—for example, the West face of Chambe peak is the highest vertical rock face in Africa. It’s over
1700 meters from base to top (that’s over 1 mile straight up!). Obviously a destination for serious alpine
climbers only.
We stayed the first night at Likhubula Forest Lodge at the base of the massif, and set off
the next morning with Moses Mwale, our highly skilled guide (he’s an internationally-trained mountaineer),
and a cast of porters. Four hours later, with ragged breath, clothes soaked through with sweat, and a
better understanding of my personal state of physical fitness (or lack thereof), I emerged on top of the
plateau where the girls were patiently waiting for me. Another hour’s hike brought us to Chambe Hut, where
we took a break for lunch before proceeding on the final 3 hour stretch to reach Sapitwa base camp before
dark. We washed up in the nearby mountain stream while Friday the cook worked wonders over a wood fire
with the many pounds of food the porters had packed up. After a good meal and some time on the porch
watching distant lightening storms in the clouds below us, we hit the sleeping bags. The first day’s
climb was long, steep and challenging, but after consultations with Moses, I decided to join the girls for
an attempt at Sapitwa summit the next morning.
Friday worked his miracles again, and after a hot, full English breakfast, we set off with
Moses for the summit. The landscape in places was absolutely surreal—parts reminded me of scenes from
“Lord of the Rings”. We scrambled up steep granite slopes, wormed on our bellies thru tunnels under huge
boulders, jumped across rock crevasses, and passed under a miniature forest with long shrouds of bark and
moss hanging from the branches. At one point near the top, I looked down (not always a good idea, I
discovered), and watched a thick bank of fog roll up the mountainside toward us from the valley below.
The girls made the summit in 3 hours, I took 4, and just as I got there, the rain, fog and lightening hit.
A metal pole at the summit was loudly buzzing with static electricity, and the girl’s hair was standing up
on end. We tried to shelter in a rock crevice for a few minutes, then started down in the rain and fog.
What had been a steep but doable granite and lichen slope on the way up suddenly became
treacherously wet and slippery in the rain and fog, and sweat turned to biting cold, particularly for
Devina who was soaked through. We crab-walked backwards or just scooted on our butts using our hands as
brakes on the slippery surface, and it was obvious again and again that if we were to start sliding, there
was no stopping. Moses repeatedly had us use a rope for safety to prevent the start of an uncontrollable
slide. I estimated that I came down on my butt for at least 1000 vertical feet, and still have a few
scrapes and bruises in strategic places to prove it. In all, the descent back to base camp took about 4 ½
hours. I found it unnerving, to put it mildly.
The third day, from the base camp back down to Likhubula, was scenic but sometimes slippery.
It rained hard the entire night before, and what were gentle streams the previous day were now raging
torrents. The primary factor during the descent, for me at least, was good old-fashioned pain. Large
blisters constantly rubbed by soaking wet socks; aching muscles, scrapes and bruises from the day before;
and plenty of punishment for the knees and joints. Comic relief was provided at Chambe Hut at lunchtime
by a large raven, which hopped up on the porch and swiftly stole a much- valued chocolate bar. Nicole
gave chase, but he made a clean get-away. Moses told us the story of another raven who stole a hiker’s
dentures while he was taking a break.
8½ hours got me down to the lodge just as it was getting dark and another lightening storm
hit, while the girls had time for a side hike to an impressive waterfall. Later, lightening struck on or
beside the lodge, and I got an unpleasant electrical shock from it while standing in water in the shower.
(yes, the potential irony of surviving the mountain only to die while standing in the shower was not lost
on me).
When all was said and done, it was a marvelous experience, and it even seemed unpleasantly
strange to reemerge into “civilization” at the bottom of the mountain. The vistas were breathtaking,
wildflowers (including wild iris and gladiolas) were abundant, and the terrain was stark, striking, and
beautiful.
Lessons for Next Time:
- Avoid the rainy season if you intend to summit.
- Remember that the weather changes very rapidly (any time of year). Have good, water-proof clothes and
good hiking boots.
- Most important if you want to summit, I highly recommend using Moses or his partner—they are the only
truly qualified guides with mountaineering and safety training, and they can make all the arrangements.
- If you just want to hike Mulanje, then you are probably OK with the regular Forest Service guides, but
remember, while they know the mountain well, they have a bare minimum of training (one week several years
ago) and no ropes or equipment, should a difficult situation arise.
- Read the pre-departure materials carefully (I didn’t, and did not realize I was supposed to bring
sleeping bags and backpacks).
Bookings: I booked through Land & Lakes, although Moses works with all the Lilongwe travel agencies.
You’ll save 15% if you book Moses directly.
John Saxby, Pretoria, South Africa. June 4, 2006
”Sometimes I walk in flowers, sometimes I walk on stone…”
(And on Mulanje, some days both. With thanks to Bruce Cockburn.)
Trail notes on a West-to-East traverse on Mt Mulanje, Malawi, May 2006
The notes below cover my traverse across Mulanje, from May 17 – 22 (six days and five nights) with my
daughter, Meg (19), our guide, Moses Mwale, and our porters Mabvuto, Geoffrey and Whiteson. Readers are welcome to
get in touch via email: jsaxby@magma.ca
An unapologetic disclaimer: Mulanje has been a place of magic and mystery for me since I first read Laurens
van der Post’s epic tale about the mountain, Venture to the Interior, half a lifetime ago as a teenager in the 1960’s.
Any place that could inspire such eloquence about beauty, power and danger had to be worth a visit.
It took a while to get there—I first visited the plateau in 1987—but I’ve managed to make four hikes on Mulanje in the
last twenty years. I’ve been privileged to hike in some of the wonderful high places of the world, but for me this
mountain, with it stark peaks and faces, its gorges and ridges, moorland, forests and streams, all awash in the brilliant
Central African light, is quite beyond compare. Can one be infatuated with a damn great lump of granite? Evidently so.
Our guide was Moses Mwale, co-founder of Tiyende Pamodzi Adventures (TPA), a trekking and guiding
service established four years ago. I first hiked with Moses on the mountain in 2003, and in the years since we have
become good friends. It’s hard to imagine a better guide: he is professional, articulate and personable, and knows and
loves the mountain. I strongly recommend that hikers engage a guide—Mulanje, like all mountains, can be dangerous, and
the routes to its peaks require a guide. TPA operates from Likhubula Forest Lodge at the base of the Likhubula Gorge on
the western side of Mulanje. TPA’s rates are very reasonable: our six-day trek cost us US$255 per person, excluding tips.
You can contact TPA via: likhubula@cholemalawi.com ; the website is www.cholemalawi.com . Tel.: +265 (0)1 467 737.
You can also make bookings for TPA via Malawian travel agents: Jambo Africa in Blantyre (jamboafrica@africa-online.net )
and Landlake Safaris in Lilongwe landlake@africa-online.net ) The Southern Africa Lonely Planet Guide has good information
on getting to Mulanje itself, and on accommodation options in the region.
The weather: The best hiking season is mid-April to September, the cool season. Hikers require clothing
for warm weather, cool weather, and wet weather. July can be cold and wet. October/November are very hot and dry, with
a serious fire danger. December and January are the wettest months. I don’t do adversity, so chose May, and we were
rewarded with five days of clear blue skies, with a dry-season haze muting the horizons. In May, the ciperone can
blow in from the South-east, bringing mist and drizzle from the Mozambique Channel. (It was this wind that turned
van der Post’s trek into catastrophe.) In recent years the ciperone has been weak, but it can still lock the mountain
in cloud for days at a time. We descended on the Eastern side on May 22, as the mists rolled in; three days later, as
we drove into north-eastern Zimbabwe via Tete, the drizzle was still with us.
The terrain: Mulanje is a big massif, some 640 sq km. in area, and about 200 kms
around at the base. Rising sheer from the plain 70 kms east of the Blantyre highlands (about 700 metres above sea level,)
it has several plateaus at 2000 metres or so, separated from each other by deep gorges and ridges and scored by dozens of
streams and rivers. The kloofs are forested, often by the big cedars which are unique to Mulanje. There are 23 peaks on
the massif, all reachable without technical climbing. The highest is Sapitwa, 3001 metres. For climbers, this place is
a paradise: the northwest face of Chambe Peak is 1700 metres, the longest rockface in Africa and a three-day climb. The
mountain was recently declared a Heritage Biosphere by UNESCO.
The solitude of the hills is unavailable in many places. On Kilimanjaro in 2003, we endured a city of 50
or 60 tents each night—this, on one of the “less used” routes. On Mulanje, at the start of the trekking season, we saw
four other travelers in six days.
