February 21, 2011
Silverback Guhonda in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

We flew from Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to Kigali, Rwanda, to start my gorilla photo tour. After an overnight in Kigali, we relaxed and enjoyed internet access in the morning before driving to our lodge in Kinigi to be near the mountain gorillas of Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda.

On our first of five gorilla treks, we visited the Sabinyo group of habituated gorillas — that's "habituated to humans." Gorillas are naturally wary of humans due to poaching in the past, but thanks to the work beginning with Dian Fossey, there are 11 groups of habituated mountain gorillas in Volcanoes National Park, eight (8) of which are for tourists to visit, and the remaining three (3) are for research.

We hiked 1.8 miles (2.9km) through farmland outside the park and then dense forest inside the park, climbing from 8200 ft (2500m) to 8600 ft (2620m), and it took us about one hour and 40 minutes. The pace was set by the slowest hikers.

The thin cloud layer with scattered dense clouds wasn't the best for photographing the dark gorillas with recessed eyes, but fortunately they were out in the open so we didn't have to deal with mixed light filtering through the forest canopy. Unbelievably, we photographed them on the same open slope, covered with stinging nettles, where I had photographed them in 2005! The Sabinyo group is composed of 12 gorillas led by the silverback Guhonda, the largest silverback in the world at 220 kg (485 lb). Most silverbacks are around 200 kg (440 lb). When we arrived, Guhonda had his back to us and mostly ignored us, but shortly before our hour was up, he turned around and posed (above). Because of the high contrast scene, I processed the single RAW file three times to to bring out detail in the shadows and the highlights, and then combined them by hand in Photoshop.