Rhumsiki Peak

PeaksFar North Region,Cameroon

A 300-metre blade of bare volcanic rock in northern Cameroon, the hardened throat of a dead volcano, standing over Kapsiki terraces and thatched stone houses.

September·Quiet month

Jun–Sep

June to September is the rains — the coolest, greenest months, when millet and sorghum climb the terraces. Nothing formally closes, but dirt tracks turn to mud and cloud smothers the red evening light, so the signature field-of-plugs view rarely lands.

Year-round The needle and its field of volcanic plugs stand every day of the year; the air's clarity, the terraces' colour and the heat swing with the seasons, from cold winter nights to a scorching spring.

Rhumsiki Peak is a blade of bare volcanic rock 300 metres high standing out of the Mandara mountains in the Far North Region of Cameroon, on the Nigerian border, the hardened throat of a dead volcano whose cone eroded away, one of a field of such needles around the Kapsiki village of Rhumsiki with its dry-stone terraces and thatched houses, and it is watched from the ridge across the valley in the evening light, walked among on the terrace paths and visited for a diviner who reads the future with a crab. The plugs are the northern tip of the Cameroon Volcanic Line, the same crack in the crust that raises Mount Cameroon far to the south; the classic view is not from the peak but from the low ridge opposite, reached before sunset and waited on, as the needles go from grey to gold to black against the plain of Nigeria, and paths thread between the plugs and along the terrace walls where a day disappears. After the rains stop in October the harvest turns the terraces gold and the rain-washed air stands the whole field of plugs sharp to the horizon, before the Harmattan dust of December closes it down. The crab diviner sits in a blacksmith's compound, since the smiths are the diviners of the Kapsiki: the visitor asks a question, the diviner shuts a crab into a clay pot with a scatter of sticks and calabash shards, and reads the answer from how the crab has moved them when the lid comes off, the pot being the real oracle. Under open thatch the Kapsiki men work narrow strips of cotton on wooden looms pegged flat into the ground and the smiths' wives turn pots beside them. The border region has been troubled by Boko Haram since 2014, and the visits depend on the security of the moment. Rhumsiki is a field of volcano throats with a village between them, and the crab tells the future at its foot.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Read your own government's advisory before you plan anything else — the United States and Britain both advise against all travel to the Far North, and ordinary travel insurance is void inside a do-not-travel zone.
The rock only turns red in the last hour before sunset — watch from the ridge that faces the village. Sunrise lights it too, but the far spires usually stay flat and hazy.
Harmattan dust hangs over the plateau from December to February — the peak itself stays visible, but the horizon of smaller plugs behind it dissolves, so shoot in the first hours after dawn.
Take a village guide — the paths between compounds are unmarked and cross people's fields, and a guide is the difference between meeting a diviner at home and watching a demonstration staged for you.

Things to do

1
Take the ridge opposite for the evening light
The classic view is not from the peak but from the low ridge across the valley, and it is worth being there early and waiting. As the sun drops, the other volcanic towers standing behind Rhumsiki separate out into layers, one dark rank behind the next, each row a little paler than the one in front of it.
2
Hike out among the volcanic needles
Paths thread between the plugs and along the terrace walls, and a day can disappear on them. Up close the needles are nothing like the postcard silhouette: cracked, streaked, tufted with trees. The dry-stone walls you climb between hold the fields to the slope and mark where one family's land ends, so go with a guide.
3
Put a question to the crab diviner
You sit in a blacksmith's compound, ask your question, and watch him shut a crab into a clay pot with a scatter of sticks and calabash shards. The waiting is the strange part: several minutes of nothing at all, then a long, careful reading of whatever the crab has moved.
4
Watch cotton spun and woven under the shelters
Under open thatch, Kapsiki men still work narrow strips of cotton on wooden looms pegged flat into the ground, and the smiths' wives turn pots nearby. It is slow, ordinary, unhurried work, and the strips are later sewn edge to edge into cloth.