Mount Speke – Rwenzori Mountains National Park

Mount Speke is found in the Rwenzori Mountains National Park and is the second highest in the Rwenzori ranges.Jointly together with Mount Baker and Mount Stanley, forms a triangle encircling the upper Bujuku Valley. The nearby peak is Mount Stanley, 3.55 kilometers (2.21 mi) to the south-southwest side. These mountains are positioned in an area range popularly known as The Mountains of the Moon.

Multiple jagged peaks are characteristics of all mountains in this range. The summits of Mount Speke are Vittorio Emanuele 4,890 metres (16,040 feet), Ensonga 4,865 metres (15,961 feet), Johnston 4,834 metres (15,860 feet) and Trident 4,572 metres (15,000 feet), above sea level. The names were derived from an Italian royal family, even though; they had to be accepted by the government of the British Protectorate of Uganda which governed the region in those days.

First explorers from Europe visited the region looking for the source of the mighty River Nile and its then that this mountain was named after John Speke. Whereas he never hiked this peak, Speke sketched in 1862 the source of White Nile . All mountains in this area are baptized after related explorers that came to Africa in the early years of colonialism. As a result of high rainfall that Mount Speke obtains, it is intersected by several water streams and rivers and its vegetation looks pretty dense.