Last week I took four days off work to visit Chirripó National Park with a friend from work. The park is one of the most popular in Costa Rica because it contains the highest peak in the country, Cerro Chirripó. The only way to spend a night in the park is to reserve a bed in a lodge near the peak. January to April is the dry season and the most popular time to climb the mountain. This meant that January 29th and 30th were the only available days in the entire four months.

The park is on the other side of San Jose and we had to leave from Bagaces at 5 am. It was a four hour trip to San Jose, a three hour trip to the city of San Isidro and a two hour bus trip up a dirt road to the little town of San Gerardo. We arrived at 4 pm and immediately confirmed our reservations at the park ranger station. Walking to the town we got a ride from a friendly couple from Arizona who were the proud new owners of a hostel in town. They had just bought the 'Casa Mariposa' a week earlier and were very enthusiastic about it. We decided to spend the night there. The hostel was great and we met a bunch of friendly people who had just gotten back down from the mountain. There were three Canadians and an American and they warned us to expect it to be cold up top.

We left the hostel at 7 am the next morning and headed into the park, which was conveniently located next to the hostel. The trail was extremely well maintained but it was uphill all the way. Every kilometer there was a signpost detailing the kilometer number and the elevation at that point. A kilometer could sometimes involve a gain in altitude of 300m or sometimes only a handful of meters. After 7km we arrived at a rest hut where we met a number of fellow hikers. There was a couple from Germany, a guy from Denmark, a guy from Spain, and a father and daughter from Costa Rica. We continued on and the climb continued fairly smoothly until we reached the 13km mark. At this point the trail became much steeper and the combination of tired legs and thin air made this last kilometer feel like ten but we finally arrived at the lodge at 1 pm. At 3400 meters of elevation the lodge was very chilly. The lodge was a lot bigger than I expected. There were long hallways of rooms with two bunk beds in each room. The lodge accommodates up to 60 people and the solar panels on the roof provided power until 8 pm. There was even two computers with satellite internet that were free to use for any visitors. After resting for a couple hours I decided to acclimatize myself to the elevation by climbing a nearby peak, Cerro Crestones, with some interesting rock formations. The valley in which the lodge was located was soon in the shade but I remained on the slope with the sun. The climbing and the heat from the sun kept me quite warm and there were a bunch of lizards also enjoying the sun lying out on rocks. But in the shade it was still quite cool as demonstrated by sheets of ice hidden in dark crevices. This was the first time I had seen natural ice in Costa Rica. The peak was a huge pillar of rock and gave a great view of the surrounding mountains. I returned to the lodge just as it was getting dark and started to bundle up for the cold night. I put two sweaters on, my rain jacket and I had my sleeping bag and I managed to be just barely warm enough during the night. Unfortunately, the combination of the elevation, the cold, and a lingering sinus infection meant that I snored like a chainsaw the whole night and my three roommates were not impressed. The next night I ended up with a room to myself.

The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn to head to the summit. There was frost everywhere in the morning and any water was covered in a thin layer of ice. The sky was perfectly clear as we made our way along the valley until we arrived at the bottom of the summit. The hike was 5 km but we didn't see the summit of Chirripó until the last kilometer. It was a very steep clamber to the top but with the end in site it was a quick climb. The sky was almost perfectly clear and you could see the lakes surrounding the summit, the Talamanca mountain range heading off to the east, the Caribbean sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. At 3820 meters (12 533 feet) this is the highest point in Costa Rica and the highest point of land that I have ever been on. The sun was warm and there was almost no wind so it was comfortable enough to spend an hour or so enjoying the scenery and filling out the mountaintop log book. There was even a little volcano junco hanging out on the summit waiting for spare crumbs. After descending we decided to take a different route back, one that led to another mountain peak. It was a steep scramble up the side of the mountain but eventually the path reached the top of the ridge. It continued along the ridge until arriving at the peak of Cerro Terbi, which is the third highest in Costa Rica at 3760 meters. One side looked over the valley where the lodge was located and the other side gave a great view over the south of Costa Rica. The trail back down to the lodge went past Cerro Crestones which I had visited the day before. The plan was to eat lunch and then climb the second highest mountain in Costa Rica, Cerro Ventisqueros, but I had slightly twisted my knee coming down the mountain so I decided to rest for a couple of hours. I ended up falling asleep and waking up at sunset. So I decided to just have supper and call it a night.

The next morning we set out at 6 am down the mountain. Going downhill was much easier and it only took us 4 hours to descend back down to the town. Back in town we had a big lunch, the first meal that didn't involve tuna or crackers in 2 days. There were no buses leaving for the city of San Isidro so we managed to hitch a ride with a Tico bringing fresh fish down from the mountain. We didn't get back to Bagaces until almost midnight after many hours of riding the bus and waiting for buses. The ice and cold of the mountains was not what I consider to be the typical Costa Rican experience but the stunning vistas more than made up for the discomfort.