The Mahale Mountains rise straight from the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika in Kigoma Region, their forested ridges climbing to Mount Nkungwe. The range is protected within Mahale Mountains National Park, gazetted in 1985 after Japanese primatologists had studied its chimpanzees since the 1960s, and it is home to one of the largest known populations of eastern chimpanzees. There are no roads in or near the park. Visitors arrive by light aircraft to a lakeshore airstrip and then by boat, and all exploration is on foot. Chimpanzee trekking starts from the beach camps and follows the habituated M group up steep forest paths; encounters are limited to an hour. The setting is unusual for a chimpanzee destination: white-sand beaches, clear water for swimming and snorkelling among Tanganyika's endemic cichlids, and dhow trips at sunset. With around a thousand visitors a year and a handful of camps, the mountains remain one of the quietest wildlife areas in Tanzania.
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