Bale Mountains National Park

The 2,200 square km Bale Mountains National Park offers spectacular alpine mountain scenery, particularly on the 4,000m high Sanetti Plateau, and it is the best place to see Ethiopia’s endemic mammals and birds.

The national park contains a rich diversity of habitat as a result of great variations in altitude and topography. These include juniper and hagenia woodland, Afro-montane forest and Afro-alpine moorland with wonderful wild flowers.

Among the endemic mammals that can be found in Bale Mountains National Park are the Mountain Nyala and the Simien wolf and the park holds at least 18 of Ethiopia’s endemic birds.

Large predators such as black-mane lions, leopard and African Wild dogs are still resident but very rarely seen by visitors.

The park can be explored on foot, on horseback or by vehicle – the road across the Sanetti Plateau, is the highest all-weather road in Africa.

Bale is still very little visited and one of the last parts of Africa to attract serious scientific exploration. German universities have recently recorded 300 types of butterflies and 40 new types of moths in the Harenna Forest.

The Harenna Forest is also home to the guereza , vervet monkey, the bamboo-dwelling Bale monkey, olive baboon, Menelik’s bushbuck, bushpig and the lesser known giant forest hog.

The Bale Mountains play a vital role in climate control of the region by attracting large amounts of orographic rainfall, which has obvious implications for livestock and agricultural production. Some 600 – 1,000 mm fall annually in the lower altitude areas, while 1,000 – 1,400 mm fall in areas of higher altitude, and over 12 million people from Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are dependent on water from the Bale massif.

A total of 40 rivers rise in the BMNP area, contributing to five major rivers.