GUNUNG · Guinea-Bissau

Monte Torin

Monte Torin (lebih lazim disebut Dongol Rondè / Mt Rondé; kadang ditulis Ronde Dongol)

Information

Elevation: 266 m
Country: Guinea-Bissau (GW)
Location / Range: Colinas do Boé — kaki barat laut massif Futa Jalon, Setor Madina do Boé, Região de Gabú
Mountain type: Bukit laterit berpuncak plateau datar di tepi barat laut massif Futa Jalon; titik tertinggi negara, bukan puncak vulkanik
Volcanic?: No (non-volcanic)
Coordinates: 11.6844, -13.8883
Difficulty: Sangat mudah secara fisik, rumit secara birokrasi. Pendakian dari titik parkir terdekat hanya menembus rumput tinggi dan hutan terbuka selama kurang dari satu jam, tanpa kesulitan teknis sama sekali. Kesulitan sesungguhnya ada pada akses: jalan tanah tanpa rambu, sungai kecil yang harus diseberangi, pos militer perbatasan, dan ketiadaan jalur resmi maupun peta jalur.
Best Season: Tidak ada rekomendasi pendakian resmi dari otoritas mana pun. Yayasan Chimbo mencatat kawasan Boé praktis tanpa hujan dari Desember hingga April dan basah kuyup dari Juni hingga Oktober, sedangkan Wikipedia mencatat musim kemarau Guinea-Bissau berlangsung Desember–Mei dengan angin harmattan. Kedua kunjungan yang terdokumentasi (Francis Tapon dan tim Gilbertson) berlangsung di musim kering, dan tim Gilbertson mencapai puncak pada 27 Desember 2021.
Permits & Rules: Tidak ada sistem izin pendakian, tiket masuk, atau pos registrasi apa pun — gunung ini tidak dikelola sebagai objek wisata. Yang berlaku justru aturan lintas batas: puncaknya berada sekitar 2 km di dalam wilayah Guinea-Bissau dari perbatasan Guinea, dan pendekatan yang terdokumentasi justru datang dari sisi Guinea melewati desa Lagui menuju Cape Bonde. Tim Gilbertson menyebut adanya pos pemeriksaan yang buka-tutup di desa perbatasan serta perlunya restu tetua desa untuk melintas. Sektor Madina do Boé juga bertumpang tindih dengan kawasan Taman Nasional Boé yang diresmikan pemerintah pada 28 Juni 2017, sehingga status kunjungan sebaiknya dikonfirmasi ke otoritas setempat.
Hazards: Risiko terbesar bersifat non-teknis. Pertama, urusan perbatasan: pada 26 Desember 2021 tim Gilbertson dicegat patroli militer bersenjata saat mengukur kandidat puncak lain di garis batas Guinea–Guinea-Bissau dan harus membayar sejumlah uang agar dilepas. Kedua, navigasi: tidak ada jalur bertanda, jaringan jalan tanah bercabang-cabang, dan sumber tertulis menyebut penunjuk arah satu-satunya adalah bertanya di tiap desa. Ketiga, keterpencilan: Boé berpenduduk lebih dari 12.000 jiwa yang tersebar di 85 desa, lebih dari 90% hidup dengan kurang dari €1 per hari, sehingga tidak ada layanan medis atau evakuasi cepat. Keempat, musim: penyeberangan Rio Corubal bergantung feri yang kerap rusak, terutama saat musim hujan. Ditambah panas tropis 30–33 °C pada siang hari dan serangga.

Description

Monte Torin is the name used by the English Wikipedia for the highest point of Guinea-Bissau, a low hill of about 266 m in the Madina do Boé sector of Gabú Region, close to the southern border with Guinea. The name itself, however, is contested. On the article's talk page editors point out that the main sources — the CIA World Factbook and the Peakbagger database — call the hill Dongol Rondè rather than Monte Torin, and one editor openly states they could find no good source for "Monte Torin". GeoNames lists Guinea-Bissau's only "highest mountain" as Dongol Rondè, 266 m, at 11.683 / -13.9 — practically identical to the coordinates of the Wikidata item for Monte Torin (11.6844 / -13.8883). When a survey team asked a local in December 2021 what the hill was called, the answer was "Mt Rondé". This entry is therefore best read as one hill circulating under three labels. The elevation figures are just as messy, and that is not sloppiness but a reflection of the fact that Guinea-Bissau has never been surveyed carefully enough to settle its own high point. The English Wikipedia text says 266 m while the infobox of the same article says 262 m with 118 m of prominence. The Geography of Guinea-Bissau article gives Dongol Ronde as 277 m while also citing an older source at 262 m. PeakVisor records Dongol Rondè at 266 m with 156 m of prominence, ranking it first of 81 named peaks in the country, yet also maintains a separate "Guinea-Bissau high point" entry of 264 m at different coordinates (11.7393 / -13.7083). The Portuguese Wikipedia meanwhile states that the country's relief "only rises to 300 metres", naming the Colinas de Boé as its culmination. Eric Gilbertson, after compiling SRTM data, a 1981 Soviet ground survey, US military mapping and several digital elevation models, concluded there were two candidates within the error bounds of SRTM (up to 16 m): one near Cape Bonde village, one near Vendu Leidi, both hugging the Guinean border. To settle it, Gilbertson with Kahler and Serge carried survey-grade GPS equipment — a Trimble Geo XR with Zephyr 2 antenna, capable of 3 cm vertical accuracy over a one-hour occupation — to both candidates on 26–27 December 2021. Their page reports the result as establishing Mt Rondé as the official country high point of Guinea-Bissau, with the results stated as accepted for publication in the journal Progress in Physical Geography. The climb itself was an anticlimax: from a vehicle parked beside the track after fording the small river marking the border, they bushwhacked through dense grass into progressively more open forest and emerged onto a flat, open rocky plateau. At the SRTM high-point coordinate they unexpectedly found an existing cairn. Four years earlier Francis Tapon had climbed the same hill up a muddy trail in under an hour and found thatched houses on top, where a woman was gathering cow dung by hand — unaware she lived a minute from her country's highest ground. The surroundings matter far more than the hill. The Dutch Chimbo Foundation describes the Boé as a 3,287.8 km² sector forming the most north-westerly part of the Fouta Djallon massif: vast flat plateaus under savanna vegetation, cut by narrow river valleys of tropical forest, with the Rio Corubal forming the western and northern boundary. More than 12,000 people live in 85 villages; daytime temperatures run 30–33 °C and nights 18–23 °C. Those forested valleys hold 1,000–1,500 western chimpanzees, and on that basis Boé National Park was created on 28 June 2017 alongside Dulombi National Park, bringing Guinea-Bissau's protected-area system to 26.3% of national territory. The Boé is also rich in bauxite, though Wikipedia notes the deposits remain largely unexploited precisely because of the surrounding park's ecological sensitivity. The same area draws scientific attention because male chimpanzees there have thrown stones at the same trees for over a decade, behaviour suspected of being ritual. Its historical weight is considerable too: Madina do Boé, the sector capital, is where Guinea-Bissau's independence was proclaimed and served as de facto capital until Bissau took over in 1974.

Routes

Bushwhack terakhir ke plateau puncak

Jalan kaki lintas medan tanpa jalur; tanpa kesulitan teknis

Kurang dari 1 jam sekali jalan

From the parking spot there is no marked trail whatsoever — the ascent is cross-country. The Gilbertson team first pushed through dense grass, then entered progressively more open forest, and finally emerged onto a flat, open rocky plateau. Because the plateau is nearly level, the true high point cannot be picked out by eye; they navigated to the SRTM coordinate marked on the GPS and there found an already-existing cairn. Waist-high grass grows not far from the high point. Francis Tapon, who climbed the same hill from another side some years earlier, described a muddy trail that rises, levels off, then climbs again at a slight grade, also in under an hour, finding thatched houses and livestock in the summit area. The conclusion is the same: what is needed is not climbing skill but a GPS, long trousers, and acceptance that the 'summit' here is inhabited farmland.

Route Segments

1

Titik parkir → tepi hutan

Menembus rumput lebat dan pohon; pada kunjungan Gilbertson dilewati pula kebun pisang kecil dengan beberapa gubuk.
2

Hutan terbuka → plateau berbatu

Vegetasi merenggang lalu terbuka menjadi plateau datar dan lapang.
3

Plateau → titik tertinggi

Permukaan hampir rata; navigasi ke koordinat SRTM di GPS. Terdapat cairn di titik tertinggi.

Source

Kandidat pesaing: Vendu Leidi Hill dari jalan N23 (Guinea)

Sangat singkat, tetapi berisiko tinggi karena berada persis di garis batas negara

Sekitar 1 jam pulang-pergi dari titik parkir; ±300 m bushwhack

This route does not lead to Monte Torin/Dongol Rondè but to Guinea-Bissau's other high-point candidate — an officially unnamed hill near Vendu Leidi village, which the Gilbertson team dubbed Vendu Leidi Hill and which PeakVisor carries as a separate entry, "Guinea-Bissau high point", at 264 m. Access is far shorter: from road N23 in Guinea, a double track that nobody would find without satellite imagery brings a vehicle to within about 300 m of the top, followed by a short bushwhack through trees and grass, a small banana plantation, and then a rocky field holding a roughly three-metre cairn thought to be an old boundary marker. The high point sits exactly on the international border line. It is listed here as both context and warning: this is where the party was intercepted by an armed military patrol on 26 December 2021 and had to hand over money before being allowed to leave, even though they had only reached the border line and turned back.

Source

Pendekatan Wendou M'Bour – Siguira – Lagui – Cape Bonde (dari sisi Guinea)

Ekspedisi off-road; kesulitan navigasi & perbatasan, bukan teknis

Sekitar satu hari penuh perjalanan darat 4x4 dari Wendou M'Bour, ditambah <1 jam jalan kaki

The only properly documented route to the summit starts from Guinean territory rather than from inside Guinea-Bissau. The Gilbertson team set off from Wendou M'Bour heading north towards Lagui, but digital maps could not distinguish vehicle-passable roads from footpaths, so the strategy that worked was to stop at every village and ask directions — first to Siguira, then to Lagui near the border. Past Siguira comes a river crossing, then a steep muddy slope with deep wheel ruts that required momentum to clear. At Lagui, permission to continue was obtained through a villager acting as intermediary; a checkpoint is sometimes staffed there and sometimes not. From Lagui a double track follows the river, swings west and fords a small river marking the international boundary — from that point on you are in Guinea-Bissau. The vehicle was parked in a clearing a few hundred metres further on. Note that the summit lies about 2 km inside Guinea-Bissau with no formal immigration post on this route, so entry status depends entirely on local rules and the discretion of officials.

Route Segments

1

Wendou M'Bour → Siguira

Jalan tanah bercabang; sebagian ruas baru diratakan buldoser dan mulus. Arah ditentukan dengan bertanya di tiap desa.
2

Siguira → Lagui

Penyeberangan sungai di luar kota, lalu tanjakan lumpur dengan bekas roda dalam. Perlu restu warga/tetua desa untuk melintas; pos pemeriksaan tidak selalu berjaga.
3

Lagui → perbatasan → titik parkir

Jalan ganda menyusuri sungai ke utara lalu ke barat, menyeberangi sungai kecil penanda batas Guinea–Guinea-Bissau; parkir di lapangan beberapa ratus meter setelah perbatasan.

Source

Climbing Experiences

Monte Torin — called Mt Rondé or Dongol Rondè by locals and by most databases — is the highest point of Guinea-Bissau at about 266 m, a flat-topped plateau hill in the Madina do Boé sector of Gabú Region, only a few kilometres from the Guinean border. It has to be said plainly: the climbing record is very thin. As far as can be verified there are only two first-hand accounts online — Francis Tapon's visit written up for Forbes in 2018 and Eric Gilbertson's survey expedition with Kahler and Serge on 26–27 December 2021 — and both approached from the Guinean side rather than from within Guinea-Bissau. No summit video could be found, there is no marked trail, no operator, and no freely licensed summit photograph. The sources below are therefore presented for exactly what they are: two genuine trip accounts of the summit, followed by audiovisual material on the surrounding Boé and Gabú country — chimpanzee documentaries from the Chimbo Foundation, historical coverage of Madina do Boé, and a resident's road footage into Gabú — which at least show the terrain, roads and life around the country's highest hill.

References

The summary above is compiled from the following sources. Click to explore them yourself.