17.11. We slept very well for such altitude (3700m). On the morning the sky was clear and views were suberb. We are still cooking from own supplies from the Czech Rep. The food is not available here.
Equipped with light backpacks we planned to reach the highest mountain in vicinity - Bwahit 4430m. Trail run through nice "romantic" valley with bubbling stream and many Lobelia plants. Again, I surrender Lobelias and did photos for the xy-time. I started suffering with shortage of films. I already used all of them even those dedicated for Kilimanjaro. Luckily Dan had some spare, thanks Dan! I didn't expected so nice themes. Take a lot of films with you !!
We climbed again alongside the cliffs' edge with views to abbys. At 4000m first patches of snow appeared. The road newly re-build by heavy road machines winded up to 4200m through "heart" of the NP. It is a big problem and endanger for the whole area. Ethiopean goverment dont have enough money to build road to remote villages through valleys (with bridges) and prefering cheaper solution comming to villages from "above". There are recent talks with UNESCO to fund new road construction bypassing NP. Road allows flow of people to the mountains. Locals are changing alpine meadows to fields of barlay, taking trees for firewood and extending pastures higher and higher... Area suffers with population explosion despite attempt of goverment to move people down to towns... But now back to climb. Bwahit summit is partially visible between clouds on below presented photo.
Last stage was rocky with icy places. We are at 11 a.m. on the summit! Just on a top there was sitting big Ibex. We tried to make photo but on video was the best. The summit was mostly in clouds. Only in one moment I saw opposite mountain covered by snow. We went fast down to the camp.
I will try to place here minivideo of Ibex .... (unfortunately at earliest around April 2001)
That's not Ibex :-). This is one of the Gelada baboon males eating juicy grass like a cow, interesting. We had a chat with friendly american couple (he was in Congo). Then wonderfull bath in near stream. At the evening was raining.
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