Published March 4, 2009 07:08PM
Biggest Cave | Scariest Predator | Driest Desert | Hottest Geysers | Largest Glacier | Highest Peak | Tallest Tree | Highest Biodiversity | Largest Primate | Most Active Volcano | Strangest Rock Formation | Biggest Bear | Largest Crater | Farthest Migrator | Tallest Waterfall
What The rarely aggressive, often playful, and unquestionably intelligent mountain gorillas inhabit tropical rainforests at elevations between 7,000 and 14,000 feet, spending their days grooming each other, lounging, and munching on bamboo. Highly social, gorillas communicate through facial expressions, grunts, hoots, barks, and screams–and yes, even the proverbial chest-beatings in response to threats. But the remarkable primate is critically endangered: Only about 700 remain in the Virunga Volcanoes on the border of Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Uganda’s southwestern forests.
Where Virunga Volcanoes/Bwindi Impenetrable National Parks, Uganda. Mountain Travel Sobek’s 13-day Uganda trek includes four days of tracking gorillas through the ancient rainforest–and an hour of up-close observation time. mtsobek.com