Many travelers often ask this question: How hard is gorilla trekking in the Volcanoes National Park. How hard you will find the gorilla trek is relative to your personal experience and fitness. Generally gorilla trekking doesn’t require any technical hiking skills. Travelers of different fitness levels rate the experience differently. Research shows that most travelers have found it much easier to hike through the Volcanoes National Park than other parks such as Bwindi in South Western Uganda.

Hiking over challenging landscape, thick foliage, bodies of water, hills and valleys is part of gorilla trekking. If you have  been running for hours and are tired, the exercise can be rather difficult and draining. Although gorilla trekking calls for a reasonable level of physical fitness, most healthy individuals should be more than capable of facing the task. The steep terrain and intense humidity of the hike will be its most challenging features.

Machetes are frequently used by guides to go through the dense jungles and roofed grassed traps. Sometimes the weather in national parks home to gorillas is erratic. Should it rain while one is trekking with gorillas, it can be challenging. You have to travel via untamed areas and deep jungles. Should it rain while you are trekking, you will need raincoats and long sleeved gear to keep yourself safe from biting insects.

To maintain ideal fitness before going gorilla trekking in Rwanda, it is advised to go for frequent lengthy walks and jogs. The gorilla family you are hiking with may make the hike easy or tough; some families are easy to locate, while others are challenging to reach since they dwell at higher altitudes. The accessibility of the national park determines the level of difficulty of gorilla trekking in Rwanda. Here there is Volcanoes National Park. The gorilla walk can take a very different amount of time every day, depending on where the gorillas have settled and how many clues they have left behind.

A gorilla group’s distance from its previous trek will decide how challenging a journey for tourists would be. The primary gorilla trekking site in Uganda, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, is a mountainous area with dense foliage, hence trekking here calls for some endurance. Children under the age of fifteen find it challenging to trek mountain gorillas as well. Elderly folks may also find it difficult to walk, although they can be transported in a more comfortable but expensive limousine chair or traditional bamboo cart. Like many others, it was via witnessing gorillas in the mist that I became aware of their predicament.

How challenging it will be for the tourist to go gorilla trekking in Rwanda also depends on their age. A decent pair of hiking shoes, sunscreen and bug repellent, plenty of mineral water, long pants and long-sleeved shirts, a hat or cap and a camera should be packed by anyone organizing a gorilla trekking trip in Rwanda. Generally speaking, elder tourists in Rwanda see more easily accessible gorilla populations since they find it challenging to trek gorilla species that live at high altitudes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Anyone Go Gorilla Trekking

The short answer is obviously no. Though the parks have made gorilla trekking accessible even to the elderly and the disabled, super young travelers are not allowed to go gorilla trekking. This is due to that young travelers may not be able to cope with the presence of the mountain gorillas.

For the average person, you will successfully go gorilla trekking in the Volcanoes National Park. Equally if you are obese you can give it a try and you will be allocated to a gorilla family that is known to be located close to the starting point of the trek.

Although gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park is now quite expensive, you won’t be let down if you are prepared to part with your hard-earned money. Rwanda’s  price for the gorilla permit is $1500 per person.