Simien Mountains National Park

Simien Mountains National Park, on the roof of northern Ethiopia, protects one of the most spectacular mountain landscapes in the world, where millions of years of erosion on the high plateau have carved jagged peaks, deep gorges and sheer escarpments that plunge some fifteen hundred metres. Ras Dashen, the highest point in Ethiopia, rises within reach of the park, and the dramatic terrain draws trekkers to its ridges and viewpoints. The mountains are a refuge for animals found nowhere else: the shaggy, grass-eating gelada baboon that gathers in great troops on the cliff edges, the endangered Walia ibex clinging to the precipices, and the rare Ethiopian wolf hunting the high moorland. Afro-alpine plants, including giant lobelias, cloak the upper slopes. Inscribed by UNESCO in 1978 as one of its first World Heritage Sites, the park is celebrated for both its scenery and its unique highland wildlife.