Mount Baker | Rwenzori Mountains National Park

Mount Baker is in Rwenzori Mountains National Park in Uganda. It is placed 2.8 kilometres from the Ugandan border with Democratic Republic of Congo. Locally known as Kiyanja, the mountain is at a height of 4,844 metres (15,892 feet) making it the sixth highest mountain on the African continent. Together with Mount Speke and Mount Stanley, the trios form a triangle enfolding the upper Bujuku Valley.

The nearest peak is Mount Stanley, which is 2.26 kilometers (1.40 mi) to the west. The mountains lie within an area of ‘The Mountains of the Moon’.Along the edge of Mount Baker, are numerous sharp peaks, the same way all the Rwenzori Mountain Range peaks have and the highest being Edward Peak.

The elevation line of Mount Baker was first reached by the Austrian mountaineer Rubert Grauer trekking along with two British missionaries, H. W. Tegart Addox and H. E. M in January 1906.

In the same around February and April, the same rock-strewn point was touched by an English excursion mission including A. B. Wosnam, Alexander F. R. Wollaston and M. Carruthers. The uppermost summit of Mount Baker was at last ascended by an expedition headed by the Duke of the Abruzzi in June of 1906. This group hiked all the mountaintops of the other five top mountains of the Rwenzori.

On his expedition into the Ruwenzori in June 1891, Franz Stuhlmann observed the peak and named it either Ngemwimbi or Semper. Abruzzi gave new name to the mountain after Samuel Baker, a British explorer who in 1864 was the first European to see and tour Lake Albert, found in the northeast of the Rwenzori Mountains. Baker had also reported to sight “great mountainous masses away in the distance, to the south of Lake Albert.