Bale Mountains National Park Explorer

Trip Snapshot

Nominated in 2009 to the World Heritage Tentative List, Bale Mountains National Park is suitably a walking, trekking, and hiking area for hikers, culture and nature enthusiasts, wildlife watchers, researchers, and more. The park is known for being home to the Ethiopian wolf, mountain nyala, giant mole rat, and Bale monkey. The high altitude, Afromontane Sanetti Plateau rises to over 4,000m and includes the highest peak in the southern Ethiopian highlands. This undulating plateau is marked by numerous glacial lakes and swamps and surrounded by higher volcanic ridges and peaks. The southern slopes are covered by the lush and largely unexplored Harenna Forest. Its high mountains, sweeping valleys, dramatic escarpment, and wide expanses of forests provide visitors with a diversity of vistas unique to the Ethiopian highlands. UNESCO has estimated that more mammal species would become extinct were the habitats of the Bale Mountains to decline than if any other area of equivalent size on the globe were to disappear and when this is combined with rare amphibian species, endemic birds, and spectacular flora, it is easy to see why the park is designated as a Biodiversity Hotspot by Conservation International