No matter how you look at them, the Simien Mountains will leave you
speechless. For trekkers, silence is the result of their lungs screaming
after slogging up a scree slope for 4200m. For animal-lovers, it’s the
trepidation of sitting among 100 gelada baboons that zaps their
vocabulary. For everyone with a heartbeat, it’s simply standing atop a
panoramic precipice and overlooking the Abyssinian abyss that takes the
breath away.
The Park was one of the first four sites to be inscribed on the World
Heritage List in 1978. Massive erosion of the Ethiopian plateau has
created one of the most spectacular landscapes in the world: jagged
mountain peaks, deep valleys and precipices sheer for 1,500 metres. The
Park is the refuge of the extremely rare Ethiopian wolf, gelada baboon
and Walia ibex,a goat unique to Ethiopia. After the site’s management
was transferred from Addis Abeba to the Amhara region in 1997, a
committee for the Park’s rehabilitation was set up, the budget and staff
increased, there was local participation in decisions, resettlement of
farmers, excision of villages and extension of the Park.
View Larger Map
