Sankaber

Arrival Above the Cloud Line

The walk from Buyit Ras to Sankaber took me most of a morning. The path climbs through eucalyptus and then breaks into open moorland, the kind that exists at altitude — heather-like shrubs, giant lobelias just beginning to appear, and a wind that comes from nowhere. When the escarpment appeared to my left, it did so abruptly: one step, grass; next step, a cliff face falling hundreds of meters to a valley I couldn’t see the bottom of.

Sankaber camp sits at around 3,250 meters, a collection of stone shelters and a small hut where the ranger checks your papers. The first thing I noticed when I arrived wasn’t the view, which was extraordinary, but the geladas. A troop of perhaps sixty of them was grazing the meadow between the camp and the cliff edge, completely indifferent to my presence. They’re unlike any primate I’ve watched — they graze on grass like ungulates, moving forward on their hands and feet, pulling blades with quick, precise fingers.

The Escarpment at Dusk

The classic move at Sankaber is to walk the rim at late afternoon. I did this alone, following the cliff edge westward until the camp was out of sight, and sat down on a ledge to watch the light change. The valley below was in shadow by four o’clock, but the far ridgeline stayed orange for another hour, and the Simien plateau behind me turned a cold, bluish green. The scale of the place is what gets you — not a single element of it is human-scaled.

That evening a scout from a different group came to the fire and told me about the Ethiopian wolves that sometimes appear near Geech. He’d worked this trail for eleven years. He said the first time he saw a wolf was also near Sankaber, at dawn, hunting rodents in the frost. I made a mental note to wake up early.

Gelada Country

I woke up early. No wolf, but the geladas were back at first light, their red chest patches catching the low sun like open wounds — the distinctive marking that gives them the local name “bleeding-heart monkeys.” The males with their long capes of auburn fur sat slightly apart from the females and juveniles, and occasionally one would stand upright to survey the meadow and then drop back to grazing. Their vocalizations fill the morning — a rolling, stuttering sound that’s more like wind through wire than anything else I’ve heard from a primate.

The walk from Sankaber toward Jinbar Waterfall takes about forty minutes if you want a side trip before continuing east. I took it, following a scout down a side path where the cliff opens into a narrow gorge and the waterfall appears below — a white thread against dark basalt. The spray reached me before I could even see the falls themselves.

Setting the Tone

Sankaber is where the Simien stops being a landscape you’re looking at and becomes one you’re inside. It’s the first night at altitude, the first close encounter with the endemic wildlife, the first moment of standing at the escarpment edge and feeling the scale of the plateau tilting under you. Everything after it is measured against this.

When to go: October through February is ideal — the rains have cleared, the grass is still green from the wet season, and gelada troops are large and active. December and January bring the coldest nights (temperatures drop well below zero at camp), so pack accordingly. March is pleasant and less crowded. Avoid July and August when the trails are muddy and visibility is frequently lost to cloud.