july-2012

The icy regions of the Rwenzoris certainly fit this description.
Straddling the border between Uganda and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, the glaciers there remain largely
unmapped and little studied by scientists due in part to their
remoteness and the long unrest on the Congolese side.
To get there, Thymann travelled eight hours overland from
Kampala, where the foothills first begin to emerge from the hot,
humid rainforests. There he joined rangers from the Rwenzori
Mountain Service for a nine-day expedition to the summits of
Mount Speke, Mount Stanley and Mount Baker: fabled highlands
which were labelled on early maps as the “Mountains of the
Moon” by the likes of the Ancient Greek cartographer Ptolemy.
As Thymann points out, the name fits perfectly given their white,
stark contrast to the rest of Africa.
“Climbing up through the jungle was surreal and beautiful,”
he recalls. “In about a day’s walk you can go from seeing
{ UGANDAN GLACIERS }
Above: The imposing Rwensori Mountains straddle the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, emerging from the hot, humid rainforests and foothills
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chameleons to seeing glaciers.” After photographing the glaciers
on the Ugandan side (and carefully noting their GPS co-ordinates
and bearings), Thymann and the team set out to cross the border.
Using the trail from an outdated topographical map from the
1980s overlaid on a modern GPS, they forged a path into the
Democratic Republic of Congo. After hours of often laborious
trekking and hacking through foliage, the team finally emerged
to a view of the range’s Western slopes.
“Seeing these glaciers, as possibly the first people to see
them in decades, was a special moment,” says Thymann.
“Instead of just documentation, the expedition became one of
exploration and discovery.
“We started Project Pressure as an art and public awareness
project, but the more we talk to scientists the more we’re
realising that these images can provide a valuable source of data
for researchers, especially in places where such data is scarce.”