Spread out over the slopes of a massive extinct volcano, Mt Elgon National Park is a good place to spot various primates and lots of birds, including the rare Jackson's francolin, alpine chat and white-starred forest robin. Larger fauna, including leopard, hyena, buffalo and elephant are far harder to spot, but most visitors come for the hiking and impressive landscapes that are peppered with cliffs, caves, gorges and waterfalls.
Elgon, whose name is derived from the Maasai name, Ol Doinyo Ilgoon ('Breast Mountain'), has five major peaks with the highest, Wagagai (4321m), rising on the Ugandan side. It's the second-tallest mountain in Uganda (after Mt Stanley at 5109m) and the eighth in Africa, though millions of years ago it was the continent's tallest and the views from the higher reaches still stretch way across eastern Uganda's wide plains.
The lower slopes are clothed in tropical montane forest with extensive stands of bamboo. Above 3000m the forest fades into heath and then afro-alpine moorland, which blankets the caldera, a collapsed crater covering some 40 sq km. The moorland is studded with rare plant species, such as giant groundsel and endemic Lobelia elgonensis, and you'll often see duiker bounding through the long grass and endangered lammergeier vultures overhead.
