Cerro Chirripo!!!
This last Sunday Elena and I set out to summit the highest peak in Costa Rica: Chirripo. This 3,280 meter (12,533 feet for us English folk) monstrosity climbs and climbs and climbs. And then climbs some more. We stayed at the remarkable Casa Mariposa Hostel (Butterfly house, more on this place later) the night before the climb. Nice location: 50 meters from the trailhead. We woke at 5 and were hiking by 5.15. The temperature rose quickly (or maybe it was the effort) and soon we were sweating buckets. The rainforest is a very warm place. I´m not going to put the link up, but the pictures from the hike should be on our photobucket page (the link for that is somewhere in our earlier posts).
Each kilometer was market with a cutesy little phrase or theme, a feature that was quaint and heartwarming early on, but grew to be agitating and mocking as we grew more and more tired. ¨Oh, here we are at ´The Old Man´s Beard´! I think they call it that because of the moss hanging from the branches! How great!¨ After 5 km of nearly-wall-steep trail with 30 pound packs, this delight was replaced with, ¨I would like to punch that Old Man in the face.¨
Up and up and up and up we went. The scenery shifted dramatically as we gained altitude. We began in lush, postcard perfect rainforest, but transitioned into temperate rainforest with thick oaks growing amongst bamboo, and eventually into desert tundra-ish landscapes reminding us of (a greener) home. A section of trail called ´The Burns´(maybe because of the feeling in your legs, maybe because whoever named it had too many spicy tamales the night before, maybe because of what I´m about to explain) featured acres and acres of crippled forest. Apparently a careless park visitor flicked a cigarette butt in the wrong place. What resulted looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book (What was that one? The Lorax?).
We had met with two other couples and played leap frog during our hike up. We became fast friends and shared food, drink, and card games at the hut at the top. Chirripo is a strenuous hike. The most common summit strategy is to hike up 14.5 km to the base camp one day, wake up the next to go to the peak and then hike all the way down to the bottom. We decided to do it this way, but might do it differently now. You see, the hike from base camp to the summit is 5 km. Obviously, you´re going to have to put these 5 km in twice (up and back down). After a short rest at base camp, getting back down to the bottom puts another 14.5 km of downhill pounding on the legs. Talking about it before hand, this seemed like the easier day. With the facts layed out on the screen, I can´t believe we were so naive. That makes a 24.5 km day of mostly downhill. Sure, easier on the lungs and heart, but very hard on the legs. Especially since we haven´t been doing much but walking around the farm since leaving Gunnison. And then it started raining. The steep trail became slippery, and soon, fast downhill kilometers were reduced to careful baby steps.
7 km became 5, and after awhile 5 became 3. We couldn´t wait to see that 0 to let us know we had reached our goal. Limping across the street to Casa Mariposa seemed like the longest, most painful stretch of the ordeal. Luckily, we were greeted by Jill, our lovely host, who brought two ice cold beers out to us on the front porch. Heavenly.
