Imet Gogo

Simien Mts, Ethiopia

William Mackesy’s account of this walk

Imet Gogo ridge, March 2019 as part of a 5 day trek

We lie in to a princely 7am, emerging to a clear sky. Our table sits in the already warm slanting sun, laden with honey porridge, bread, jams and Nutella. A sight to cheer altitude-jaded heads.

We are heading to the Imet Gogo high point at the sharp end of the ridge (wide here) we are camping on. This is going to be a beautiful and relatively easy day, a good thing given we are walking to 3,926m on just our third day.

We set off at 8.30, making a long, steady climb through gorgeous yellow ochre meadows up the right flank of the narrowing ridge. A valley separates us from the main Simien mass to our right, its bottom too deep to be seen.

This is a magical landscape of giant lobelias scattered across wide, sloping grasslands, which have begun to return to nature after the recent evacuation of Geech village.

A night at 3,600m has helped our acclimatisation, and we plod along cheerfully. After perhaps 1.5hrs, we reach a stone platform near the end of the ridge, with huge and thrilling views out to the north-west, and across where our valley was – it has ended in a startlingly deep abyss – south-east past the even higher escarpment rim towards Chenek, tomorrow night’s camp, and the ridge which supports Ras Dashen, Ethiopia’s highest point, on the far horizon.

We head on along the top of a narrow rocky dyke, dropping off and back where it breaks, eventually reaching the all-round wonder-views of the Imet Gogo point. A rapturous pause is taken.

On our return, we find a troupe of gelada monkeys on our platform. They swing acrobatically down the little cliff to the balcony below. We have a delicious half hour watching them grazing, playing, scratching and socialising along just below us. They are remarkably confident.

We turn right along the northern escarpment edge to the Saha hilltop, where we eat vegetable sandwiches and admire yet more astounding views over the weird forms of the escarpment edge to the distance-hazed, deep-gorged farmland far below and the orange cliffs and buttes of the distant ridges.

Round the flank of a hill, we descend steadily though scattered lobelias onto a wide grassy plain – fantabulous walking – where we see a huge group of geladas to our right. We cut round above to their right, then turn through the middle of them – they are strung out over perhaps half a mile. They move casually aside, as we silently tiptoe through. They move slowly along, grazing, their babies leaping and playing. It is a few minutes of unalloyed joy.

We then make a steady climb to the Kedadit hilltop for yet more vast and thrilling views out form the escarpment. Afternoon clouds add shadow-definition to the slopes and wildly broken lower hill-country.

A gentle half-hour descent gets us back to camp, where we take tea and biscuits. What a day.

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