Mt. Mulanje hike

After over a year living in Malawi and seeing Mt. Mulanje everyday from my yard, I finally went out and climbed the thing with my boyfriend. Over the course of three days we hiked over 40 kilometers reaching an elevation of around 9,000 feet. The hike was brutal. The first day alone we walked for 6 hours uphill, climbing over 6,000 feet, to reach the first cabin we were staying at. The views along the way were incredible.

We stayed that night at the cabin at the base of the highest peak, Sapitwa, and the next morning planned to surmount it. Sapitwa, in Chichewa, means "don't go there" and we probably should have headed the warning.

We woke to a blanket of fog covering the mountain. After waiting for about an hour, the fog wasn't clearing and we decided to attempt the climb anyway. The hike turned out to be even harder than the day before. Most of the hike required us to crawl, climb, and scale impossibly steep rock cliffs. The fog never lifted, so we couldn't see more than 40 feet in front of us; it felt like we were climbing forever with no clear destination ahead. When we started, the terrain was all rock and small shrub trees. Further up the mountain we entered a weird valley that had conditions more like a rainforest. Everything was wet and green, moss and ferns coated everything. Our clothes were wet from the strange fern gully as we climbed out to reach the final ridge before the peak. And then the wind began. We were not prepared for the cold that we then experienced.

After over 2 hours of climbing in the cold wet conditions it became too freezing for us to continue and we had to turn back. We got within about 400 ft of the peak but could not physically continue without possibly losing a finger to frostbite. So we climbed back down to our cabin and sat by the fire for awhile to rest. After lunch we continued with the next leg of our journey, a short 2 1/2 hour walk to another hut.

Going down in elevation, it became a lot warmer and the weather cleared up. The hike was enjoyable and we made it to our next cabin without any problem. The next day was our final day hiking. We took a beautiful path down the mountain, going by rivers and waterfalls.

We finally made it to the bottom. It was a difficult, crazy, fun adventure. I am glad I did it, but it might be a while before I attempt it again.