Bale Mountains: The Ethiopian Wolf and the Sanetti Plateau

While the Simien Mountains draw the crowds, the Bale Mountains are where Ethiopia's wildest wildlife still has room. This is the home of the Ethiopian wolf — Africa's most endangered carnivore — and of a high-altitude plateau that barely registers on mass tourism's radar.

The Sanetti is a rolling Afroalpine moorland above 4,000 metres, studded with giant lobelias that look like botanical rockets and crossed by shepherds on horseback. It is one of the few places in Africa where you can stand on moorland and see for a hundred kilometres.

The Ethiopian wolf is a fox-like canid that hunts by day, stalking the giant mole-rats that build tunnels mounds across the plateau. Patient hours on the moorland almost always reward you. Bale is also home to the endemic Bale monkey, mountain nyala, and a richness of birds including the blue-winged goose.

Bale is trekking country in the roughest, most rewarding sense. Our expedition routes cross the plateau and overnight in simple camps, letting the wolves set the rhythm. It suits travellers who want wilderness over Wi-Fi — and the sense of having a national park almost to themselves.