Travel | April/May 2024

Climbing Malawi’s Island in the Sky

A steep, lush massif—the country’s highest peak at 10,000 feet—beckons adventurers

OPENER -The mountain range is beloved for its challenging rock climbing and unusually varied terrain, from grassland and forest to rugged alpine rises.

The mountain range is beloved for its challenging rock climbing and unusually varied terrain, from grassland and forest to rugged alpine rises.

Thoko Chikondi

By Mark Jenkins

Photographs by Thoko Chikondi

Mount Mulanje, located at the southern end of Malawi in southern Africa, covers close to 400 square miles of steeply forested gorges and ancient stone summits. Rising more than 5,000 feet above the surrounding savanna, the massif was formed 130 million years ago, when magma, having cooled slowly beneath the surface of the earth, transformed into masses of crystallized granite. Over eons, the softer sedimentary rocks around the immense bulge of hard stone washed away. Today, the massif, known as an inselberg, German for “island mountain,” is a world unto itself—smoothly rounded stone mountains blanketed in green moss and black lichen, waterfalls tumbling from precipitous heights on all sides, rivers carving down through foothills of primeval forest and vanishing in the plains.

Kondwani Chamwala, a mountaineer, educator and specialist with the Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust (MMCT), a few hundred feet from the summit. Thoko Chikondi

Mount Mulanje has the tallest rock wall on the African continent. Known as the West Face of Chambe Peak, it extends 5,500 feet base-to-summit. Its scale is hard to grasp. Imagine Yosemite’s El Capitan and Half Dome stacked on top of each other, with a forested terrace between the lower and upper walls.

As an avid alpinist, I traveled to Malawi to climb a new route on this wall. Because Mulanje is in the tropics, the granite has not been subjected to the timeless freeze-thaw cycles that split stone at higher latitudes and altitudes; consequently, there were no cracks, which meant the surface was glass-smooth and could not be ascended without placing bolts for protection. After a week of climbing with James Garrett, a veteran alpinist from Utah, we had drilled more than 30 bolts and completed a 2,000-foot route—Garrett had named it Passion and Pain—up the featureless granite to reach the terrace. After we pulled up onto flat ground, we expected to find a forest, but all the trees had been chopped down and carried off the sides of the mountain. The goliath upper wall loomed above us, but Garrett was set to return home, so we left the upper half of the West Face for our next expedition.

Shocked to see such deforestation, I decided to trek deep into the Mulanje Mountains to uncover the reason for what I considered an environmental tragedy. En route, I intended to climb the highest peak in the entire range, Sapitwa, just shy of 10,000 feet, located in the Mount Mulanje Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO-protected forest.

I set out at 7:30 a.m. from the village of Likhubula, on the west side of the range. With me was my guide and porter, Witness Stima. Stima is a quiet, good-natured and extremely fit young man who is a subsistence farmer when he is not working as a mountain guide. He’d hiked the mountain many times and showed up with nothing more than an empty daypack and a jacket—no food, no knife, no trail map, no compass. He knew the path.

At the start of the trail, below Likhubula Falls, a pleasant little pounding waterfall, I watched a local farmer catch a giant mottled freshwater eel with his bare hands. The eel was more than three feet long, weighed at least 15 pounds and was writhing wildly, snapping its backward-curving, razor-sharp teeth. The man casually drove a stick down its throat and carried it away: dinner for his family for a week.

As is often the case with an early start, we moved swiftly and steadily. We planned to spend the night in the Chisepo Hut, so our packs were light—no tent, stove or cookware; just food, raincoats and sleeping bags. Chisepo Hut, at an elevation of 7,280, sits at the base of Sapitwa—almost a 5,000-foot climb. Our itinerary was a bit ambitious. Most people take three to five days to climb the mountain, first staying at huts at around 6,000 feet, for acclimatization, then staying in the Chisepo Hut the night before and the night after the ascent to the summit. But Stima, being so familiar with the routes, thought nothing of making a two-day ascent.

After two hours of tramping, we reached the Chambe Plateau—a rolling basin surrounded by high, bell-shaped granite walls. What I saw disappointed me: The entire basin had been clear-cut of trees. Given that we were in a UNESCO-protected forest, I couldn’t understand it.

After our trip, I would speak to Carl Bruessow, executive director of the Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust. He explained that the forests on this African “island in the sky,” as he described it, had a long and troubled history. “Much of the mountain was once covered in Mulanje cedar,” said Bruessow. Mulanje cedar, a tropical conifer that grew to around 150 feet and could be five feet in diameter, is endemic to the Mulanje Mountains. Straight-grained, hard as iron and termite-proof, Mulanje cedar was highly sought-after for the construction of buildings and bridges. Consequently, it was intensely logged from the beginning of the 1900s, when Malawi was a British colony known as Nyasaland, straight through to the country’s independence in 1964, despite the Mulanje Mountains being described as a forest preserve as early as 1927. “For many decades,” Bruessow said, “there was a mileslong cable that airlifted equipment, including trucks and tractors, up into the mountains.”

MAP — An hour’s drive from Blantyre, Malawi’s second-biggest city, Mount Mulanje’s UNESCO-protected forests feature well-marked hiking trails, mountain huts and nearly sheer granite domes that draw growing numbers of rock climbers. Guilbert Gates

Ovilela Banda, of Muonkera Village, makes traditional brooms using a tall grass that grows at higher elevations, usually requiring a hike of several hours to harvest. Thoko Chikondi

As in many countries in Africa, Malawi’s population has exploded. Fifty years ago there were about 5 million people in Malawi; today there are more than 20 million. The economy has not kept up with the increase in population. It is the world’s fourth-poorest country, according to the World Bank, with two-thirds of the nation living in extreme poverty and many people surviving on just $2 to $3 a day. Over the course of the 20th century, the Mulanje Mountains became the top source of firewood for cooking for almost half a million villagers surrounding the reserve, aided and abetted by what is widely described as a corrupt Malawian forestry department. Not surprisingly, Mulanje cedar is now almost extinct.

The Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust (MMCT) was founded in 2000 to save the mountains from total destruction. After years of failed attempts to work effectively with the forestry department, Bruessow said, “We realized our only hope was to work directly with villagers.”

With funding from the World Bank, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the U.S. Forest Service, the MMCT started 13 nurseries for Mulanje cedar. Between 2004 and 2016, the trust planted tens of thousands of seedlings each year, and sometimes as many as 150,000. Nursery management and much of the planting was done by women, providing desperately needed income for poor families. The trust also hired local men as woodcutters to remove the invasive Mexican weeping pines the British had planted once the cedar was gone, in an attempt to bring back a balance of indigenous species. That’s why the Chambe Plateau was barren.

Cover image of the Smithsonian Magazine April/May 2024 issue

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This article is a selection from the April/May 2024 issue of Smithsonian magazine

Carl Bruessow, executive director of the MMCT, aims to replenish Mulanje’s natural biodiversity by replanting Mulanje cedar trees and more than a dozen other native plants. Thoko Chikondi

Higher elevations are often dotted with wildflowers, including orchids and gladioluses, and a distinctive, human-sized shrub called Vellozia splendens. — Higher elevations are often dotted with wildflowers, including orchids and gladioluses, and a distinctive, human-sized shrub called *Vellozia splendens*. Thoko Chikondi

“We employed well over a 1,000 people for this project,” Bruessow said. “We have now planted over 1.5 million Mulanje cedar seedlings.” Still, he acknowledged that more needs to be done to ensure that the cedar saplings survive. “The Mulanje cedar is a keystone species,” he went on, “but it is just one part of an entire ecosystem. We are also planting 15 other indigenous species to provide cover and fire protection. Our goal is to return the natural biodiversity to the landscape.”

To this end, Bruessow and the MMCT have created a comprehensive ecological and social regeneration proposal currently under review in the Malawian government and with potential donor NGOs. “It can’t just be about trees,” he explained. “Protecting Mulanje requires a multi-sector approach: forests, yes, but also tourism, cultural preservation, water management, irrigation and hydropower.”

Stima and I crossed the Chambe Plateau and noticed that the nascent heads of small plants had sprouted everywhere. These spriglets heartened me. With any luck, in a decade, this mountain basin will be rewilded.

Without forest cover, the hiking was hot, and we stopped to cool down in a clear pool fed by a murmuring stream. I removed my shoes and waded in, gripping the cool sand on the river bottom with my overheated toes. The water was not only potable, it was delicious.

The Mulanje Mountains are the major watershed for southeastern Malawi, containing the headwaters of nine rivers that supply water for hundreds of thousands of Malawians. Without forests, in this heat, the mountain’s rivers could slowly dry up.

Eventually, we left the cool water and headed straight uphill beneath the tyrannical tropical sun. The trail runs along the top of a ridge, then switches back steeply down to a sharp-sided pass no wider than the trail. There was a precipitous 1,000-foot drop to either side. Birds appeared to be using this as a pass over the mountains. I spotted a raptor, which I later identified as a booted eagle, then a lizard buzzard and a plethora of other winged creatures I could not identify. In the least disturbed regions of the Mulanje Mountains, the bird life is off the charts, with 249 known species, including the blue-billed teal, the harlequin quail, the emerald-spotted wood dove and the fiery-necked nightjar.

Across the pass, we followed the path through a small stand of tall trees when I suddenly heard the distinctive thunk of an ax. From its deep resonance I could tell a large tree was being felled. I jumped to the conclusion that this was an illegal woodcutting, but Stima reassured me.

“No, no,” he said. “Firebreaks.”

Rosina Kaliati prepares Mulanje cedar saplings. The MMCT has so far replanted more than 1.5 million saplings of Malawi’s national tree. Thoko Chikondi

A firebreak near Chambe Hut. Wildfires, sometimes set by farmers to clear plots or poachers to flush out wildlife, are a constant danger to Mulanje’s forests. Thoko Chikondi

Witness Stima, a mountain guide, en route to Sapitwa Peak, at 9,800 feet the highest in the range. Mark Jenkins

Forest fires are a constant threat on Mount Mulanje, often set by locals to drive animals from the forest into their nets. These include the blue duiker, the bush hyrax, the blue monkey, the red bush squirrel, the Mozambique dwarf galago, the rusty-spotted genet, the African palm civet and even the endangered Mulanje chameleon. To keep small fires from getting out of control and consuming the entire mountain, the MMCT hires a crew of full-time woodcutters to chop firebreaks through the forests. In the past 20 years, they have created more than 500 miles of firebreaks.

Just as we began to rise out of the forests into alpine environs, a lovely mist settled around us. We passed into heath and stony highlands. The rocks on the trail became treacherously slippery, but I was so delighted to be out in the open I practically skipped uphill.

Coming over a bald expanse of rock, we were surprised to see tiny bright dots on the trail far out in front of us. As we closed the distance, the dots turned into people wearing colorful raincoats: an English family of four, parents and their two teenagers, and their guides and porters, 11 in total. We all rolled into the Chisepo Hut around 1 p.m., the surrounding mountains of stone half-hidden in swirls of mist.

The peaks rise above thick mists and rain clouds, giving the mountain its local name—“island in the sky.” Thoko Chikondi

The trek to Sapitwa includes rock slabs, narrow ridges and protected formations like this one 165 feet from the top. Thoko Chikondi

In total, there are ten huts in the mountains, nine of them maintained by the MMCT, the forestry department and the Mountain Club of Malawi, founded in 1952 “by a group of energetic expatriates who were regular climbers on Mount Mulanje,” according to the club’s website. They’re ramshackle wooden cottages—a spacious veranda, wooden table and bench, corrugated roof that roars inspiringly during mountain thunderstorms, and an outhouse. (The tenth hut is privately owned and operated.) Each hut has a caretaker who will for a couple of dollars get a fire going in the stone hearth for you. The cookware was a bit beat up, and the sleeping mats could have used a wash, but it was a refuge from the rain and wind.

Stima retired to the porters’ cabin, where he fell asleep in a pile of sleeping bags. The English mother was slightly altitude-sick and took a nap, while the teenagers did their homework. I set myself up on the veranda with a book and read a little Mulanje history as the tin roof rattled with rain.

Early humans are thought to have been living on the shores of Lake Malawi more than 80,000 years ago. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, Malawi was part of the Maravi Confederacy that stretched from modern-day Zambia to the coast of Mozambique.

By the 1600s, the Portuguese had arrived, trading goods and introducing intercontinental slavery. The British moved in by 1891. The first European to record seeing Mount Mulanje, in 1859, was Scotsman David Livingstone, the proselytizing explorer and devout abolitionist. He was followed by missionaries intent on converting the Malawian population to Christianity. Today more than three- quarters of Malawians are Christians.

The first anti-colonial freedom fighter in Malawi, John Chilembwe, was a Baptist minister. Chilembwe was assistant to British Baptist minister Joseph Booth from 1892 to 1895 in Blantyre, some 40 miles west of Mount Mulanje, then sailed to the United States, where he attended Virginia Theological Seminary. Returning to Malawi in 1900, Chilembwe was outraged by the brutality of white plantation owners toward Black workers.

A bronze sculpture in London of John Chilembwe, who led a revolt against British colonial rule and is now revered as a national hero. Guy Bell / Alamy

At the beginning of World War I, poor Black Malawians, many of them abused and mistreated, were being conscripted to fight the Germans. With hundreds of followers, Chilembwe attacked one of the worst of the plantations, beheading a manager who was known for his brutal treatment of workers. The colonial government quickly retaliated, executed 40 of the rebels, imprisoned another 300, tracked down Chilembwe along the Mulanje Mountains near the
Mozambique border and shot him dead.

Chilembwe, leader of the first fight for independence in Malawi, is a national hero. Since 2016, his countenance has been on the 2,000 kwacha note (about $1.20).

We rose the next morning at 4:30 while everyone else was fast asleep. After slugging down peanut butter sandwiches, we headed out with headlamps.

Within half an hour we were able to shut off our lights. The landscape was a steep boulder field with three-foot-tall tufts of mountain grass between the rocks. The trail wiggled disjointedly up through the boulders, some of which were marked with red paint that kept us on track in case fog were to descend.

For some Malawians, Sapitwa Peak is sacred, where their ancestral spirits are thought to reside. Its name translates to “a place where people do not go.” Thoko Chikondi

It couldn’t have been a more sublime morning. No wind, clear blue-and-purple skies, the sun slowly rising above the red dust blanketing the savanna far below. It was the most fecund alpine terrain I had ever experienced, with lovely, waist-high grass and the emblematic Vellozia splendens—a shrub as tall as a human, with a thin trunk and a crown of spiky leaves—puncturing the skyline.

The higher we scrambled, the more magical the terrain became. We hooked left around one boulder, right around another, circled an impasse, climbed up a rampart, scrambled directly over the hunchbacks of granite giants, then dropped back down into the tall grass. Near the top we had to crawl on our hands and knees through several caves.

We reached the summit at 7 a.m. I slowly turned in a circle to absorb the majestic panorama. All of southeast Africa was spread out below: Mozambique to the east, south and west, Tanzania to the far northeast, Zambia to the far northwest. Every direction curved off into a distant haze, blurring the line between heaven and earth.