Qualla: Simien Mountains

Simien Mountains: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest, CC BY 2.0. In the 3rd century AD, an Aksumite inscription called the Monumentum Adulitanum described the Simien Mountains as "inaccessible mountains covered with snow" where soldiers walked up to their knees in it. Many centuries later the Scottish traveler James Bruce denied that any such snow existed. He was wrong, and the 19th-century explorer Henry Salt explained why on April 9, 1814, when Salt saw snow in the Simiens himself and pointed out that Bruce had simply never ventured past the foothills. This is what the Simiens do to visitors. They are higher, colder, sharper, and stranger than almost anyone approaching them from the Ethiopian lowlands is prepared for.

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Image: A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest | CC BY 2.0

Simien Mountains: An Ancient Shield Volcano

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ondřej Žváček, CC BY 2.5. Between 40 and 25 million years ago, during the Oligocene, massive lava flows spread across what is now northern Ethiopia, depositing a basaltic layer 3,000 to 3,500 meters thick on top of the Precambrian crystalline basement. The source was a Hawaiian-type shield volcano that co...

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Image: Ondřej Žváček | CC BY 2.5

Simien Mountains: Snow in the Tropics

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Florian Fell, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Simien are one of the few places in tropical Africa where snow regularly falls. Only South Africa's Drakensberg range, formed in the same basaltic-plateau way, produces similar winter whiteness at comparable latitudes. In the Simien the snow dusts the high plateaus at dawn du...

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Image: Florian Fell | CC BY-SA 3.0

Simien Mountains: Walia, Gelada, and the Rarest Canid

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rod Waddington from Kergunyah, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0. The walia ibex exists only here. A wild goat with curving horns and a stocky build, it clings to the most precipitous sections of the escarpment and has survived because those cliffs are mostly inaccessible to livestock and hunters. Gelada baboons - often called bleeding-heart mo...

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Image: Rod Waddington from Kergunyah, Australia | CC BY-SA 2.0

Simien Mountains: People on the Plateau

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest, CC BY 2.0. The Simien have been inhabited by humans for thousands of years. The Aksumite kings used them as a place of exile - Cosmas Indicopleustes noted this in the 6th century. Ethiopian Orthodox monasteries have clung to the escarpment edge since medieval times. Farmers have carved terr...

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Image: A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest | CC BY 2.0

Simien Mountains: Folklore of the Genwarar

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Judisa at German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Nathaniel Pearce, who lived in Ethiopia for years in the early 19th century and kept detailed journals, recorded a folklore tradition from the Simien about certain short trees called Genwarar. The trees rarely reached eight feet in height, and from a distance their silhouettes so...

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Image: Judisa at German Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Simien Mountains: Flight Context

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest, CC BY 2.0. Located at 13.49°N, 38.44°E in northern Ethiopia's Amhara region. Peaks rise to 4,550 meters (Ras Dejen). Recommended viewing altitude FL200-260; maintain clearance above terrain. Expect strong mountain weather - significant turbulence, rapid weather changes, afternoon convective activity in rainy season (June-September). Best flying conditions October through February. Gondar Airport (HAGN) approximately 100 kilometers southwest provides nearest aviation services. The 2,000-meter northern escarpment is a spectacular feature visible from altitude.

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Image: A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest | CC BY 2.0