Mount Baker or Kiyanja is a mountain in the

Rwenzori Mountains National Park Rwenzori Mountains National Park is a Ugandan national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Rwenzori Mountains. Almost in size, the park has Africa's third highest mountain peak and many waterfalls, lakes, and glaciers. The park is ...

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

, from the border with the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

. With a height of , it is the fifth highest mountain in Africa. Together with

Mount Stanley Mount Stanley, also known as Mount Ngaliema (, also , ), is a mountain located in the Rwenzori range. With an elevation of 5,109 m (16,763 ft), it is the highest mountain of both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and th ...

and

Mount Speke Mount Speke lies in the Ruwenzori Mountains National Park in Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the D ...

, it forms a triangle enclosing the upper Bujuku Valley. The nearest peak is Mount Stanley, which is to the west. The mountains lie within an area called "The Mountains of the Moon". Like all peaks in the Ruwenzori Range, Mount Baker has multiple jagged peaks along a ridge. The highest is Edward Peak. The ridge line of Mount Baker was first reached in January 1906 by the Austrian mountaineer

Rudolf Grauer Rudolf Grauer (20 August 1870, Hellbrunn, Salzburg – 17 December 1927, Vienna) was an Austrian explorer and zoologist. He conducted zoological investigations in British East Africa (present-day Uganda) in 1905, German East Africa in 1907, a ...

accompanied by two British missionaries, H. E. Maddox and H. W. Tegart. In February of that year and again in April, the same rocky point was reached by an English expedition, including Alexander F. R. Wollaston, , and

Douglas Carruthers Alexander Douglas Mitchell Carruthers (4 October 1882 – 23 May 1962) was an explorer and naturalist of some repute. He was the son of the Reverend William Mitchell Carruthers of Holbrook, Suffolk, Holbrook, and was an explorer in the Middle ...

,.Climbing history before 1906
at www.rwenzoriabruzzi.com. The highest point of Mount Baker was finally climbed in June by an expedition led by the

Duke of the Abruzzi Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ...

, which climbed all peaks of the other five highest mountains of the Rwenzori, . The

Bakonjo The Konjo, BaKonzo (pl. ''Bakonzo'', sing. ''Mukonzo''), or Konzo, are a Bantu peoples, Bantu ethnic group located in the Rwenzori region of Southwest Uganda in districts that include; Kasese, Bundibugyo, Bunyangabu and Ntoroko districts. The Ban ...

name for the mountain seems to have been (and currently is) "Kiyanja". On his June 1891 expedition into the Ruwenzori,

Franz Stuhlmann Franz Ludwig Stuhlmann (29 October 1863 – 19 November 1928) was a German naturalist, zoologist and African explorer, born in Hamburg. Biography Stuhlmann was born and grew up in Hamburg where his father was an architect. He took a great intere ...

observed the peak and named it either "Semper" or "Ngemwimbi". Abruzzi renamed the mountain after

Samuel Baker Sir Samuel White Baker (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) was an English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He also held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt ...

, a 19th-century British explorer who in 1864 was the first European to sight and visit Lake Albert, just northeast of the Ruwenzori Mountains, and who had reported to glimpse "great mountainous masses away in the distance, to the south of Lake Albert."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker Rwenzori Mountains Mountains of Uganda Four-thousanders of Africa