Authentic stories of disappearance on Mount Nyangani—and the pain of not knowing

There are places in the world where silence is heavier than sound.

Mount Nyangani, in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands, is one of them.

For years, that mountain has drawn me. Not only because of its beauty, or the mist that folds around its slopes like memory—but because of what has happened there.

Because of the loss of that person.

In Mist and Unappeased Spirits, I wrote about a fictional disappearance on Mount Nyangani. But the inspiration behind the story is painfully real. People—children, students, and travellers—have disappeared there, and many remain missing.

Some of those losses touched me personally.

Others I encountered in the press, in whispered conversations, in the shared weight of families still waiting.

Stories That Still Echo

• In 1981, two teenage girls—daughters of a prominent government official—disappeared without a trace.
• A few years later, a schoolboy on a field trip wandered away and was never seen again. His teacher, overwhelmed with guilt, took his own life.
• A 30-year-old tourist went hiking Despite helicopters tracking dogs and spiritual interventions, he was never found.
• Months later, a British student, also hiking solo, nearly suffered the same fate. He survived a stormy night on the mountain and admitted he should have listened to local warnings.
• In 2020, twin boys died of exposure after a sudden storm caught them on the slopes.

Some of these cases ended in grief. Others in mystery. All of them left behind people who wake up every day without answers.

Why Do People Still Disappear? Natural Dangers and Otherworldly Beliefs.

Mount Nyangani is beautiful—but also deeply treacherous. Even without the stories of spirits and disappearances, the mountain presents an actual set of physical hazards.

Weather conditions can shift in minutes. What begins as a sunny hike can quickly become a white-out of thick fog, swirling wind, and heavy rain, leaving hikers disoriented and stranded. There are steep ravines, dense forest cover, and unmarked trails. Some believe people fall into crevices or get turned around so badly they unknowingly wander further into the wilderness. There are also reports of magnetic anomalies on the mountain that can disrupt compasses and GPS devices—confounding even well-prepared trekkers.

But then… there are the other explanations.

Local belief holds that the mountain is guarded by ancestral spirits—beings who protect the sacred land and its hidden realms. Elders speak of spirit realms where time moves differently. Some claim that people who vanish are taken to this realm, held in a state of suspension until the spirits are appeased.

Over the years, stories have emerged of strange and unsettling sightings:

• A smouldering cooking pot, with no fire beneath it and no one in sight.
• A perfectly placed brick of gold glinting on a rock.
• A rainbow-coloured snake, too large and still to be real.
• A hut that appears and disappears in the mist.

Red eyes in the dark, watching without sound.

In each of these tales, the warning is the same: Don’t touch. Don’t speak. Don’t disrespect. The mountain tests those who climb it, and the uninvited—or the arrogant—may not return.

Whether one believes in the spiritual explanations or not, what remains constant is this: the mountain is not to be taken lightly. Its dangers—both real and imagined—are part of what makes it so deeply mysterious.

Ambiguous Loss: Grieving the Unknown

When someone vanishes, and you don’t know what happened to them, the grief takes a different shape. It’s called ambiguous loss—a kind of mourning that comes without closure.

You can’t hold a funeral.

You don’t know when to stop hoping.

You’re stuck between two worlds: the one where they’re alive, and the one where they’re not.

In Mist and Unappeased Spirits, Ara experiences that heartbreak. When William disappears on the mountain, she’s pulled into a liminal space—where time, memory, and emotions blur. Her journey is fictional, but the pain is all too real.

Why I Wrote This Story

I wrote Mist and Unappeased Spirits to explore the unseen places where grief lives. The mountain became more than a setting—it became a mirror for what so many people live with: the ache of not knowing.

I also wrote it to honour the genuine stories. Those families who conducted a search. The friends who waited. The silence that remains.

Final Thought

Mount Nyangani is still there. People still climb it. And, sometimes, people still disappear.

This post is for them.

And for anyone who has ever waited for a door to open that never did.

Explore Mist and Unappeased Spirits here. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DCC3235J

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