View to Bintumani

The summit - Bintumani is seen as the flat topped peak on the horizon  - March 1969 - viewed from Kurobonla

This view of Bintumani taken from Kurobonla, the last stop on the road before heading along the savannah and up into the Loma Mountains. In March 1969 (with Skip Smith) and March 1970 (with Lloyd Ziegler) we traveled to this remote section of Sierra Leone to hike up Mt. Bintimani. The area was inhabited by the Kuranko and from Kurobonla to the next village, Sokurella was about 15 miles. In the days we hiked noon temperatures approached 115. However the mornings were cool and foggy and once we established based camp on the mountain temperature was in the 70's during the day and the fifties at night. I brought a tent which had been given to Susan and I at our wedding - so when not staying in villages we had this for protection. I also had a primus white gas stove for cooking and boiling water. In Sokurella we ate rice cooked by some of the women there. In Kurobonla we stayed at a health clinic where I remember one night being very upset when a young girl, quite ill and emaciated probably from TB showed up at the clinic (she had been carried by her parents for miles in a hammock) and died.