Cerro Chirripó, Round Deux

On a moments notice, I decided it was a good idea to give Cerro Chirripo a second shot. After my first trip up the tallest peak in Costa Rica, I had decided it was probably going to be my first and last climb. The weather had been miserable, the trail muddy and steep, and the view, well, somewhat disappointing. All this set aside, I took the invite from Ashley, Shamus, and Ben to join them for their first climb.

We arrived around 3:55 in San Isidro to find out we were just in time to miss the 4 o'clock bus to San Gerardo, the base town for climbing Chirripo. A little put out, we decided to try and hitch up to the town. We walked a few km out of San Isidro, and got on the road to Rivas. We figured we might end up sleeping on a soccer field somewhere, or walking the 25km to town. To our surprise, we were almost immediately picked up by a very nice farmer who was headed all the way to San Gerardo, what luck! About half way up we stoped on the roadside next to a cliff. The farmer got out and picked up a box that sitting next to Ben. "Todo bien?" I asked. The farmer grinned and said, "Un perro... se murio" as he tossed the box off the cliff... I guess that's how they bury dogs in Costa Rica. We were beside ourselves.


We hadn't made reservations to make the climb, and upon arriving found out that they were REQUIRED! Being the stubborn travelers we are, we went to the ranger station at 5am, just to make sure that there hadn't been some mistake, or that no one had canceled. Turns out that they sell 10 spaces per day on a first come basis, so we got our tickets to go... around 7am... In the meanwhile Ben and I tried the local fruit (not advised) and saw on a poster the kind of wildlife to expect in the park...



The trailhead for the hike is right around 5,000 feet. Each kilometer of the hike has a different name and title for the kilometer. In honor of the system, we took pictures at each of the markers with our own interpretation of the signage. Enjoy.

Shamus struggling with the first few steps

We were gifted beautiful weather for the entire trip, and soaked up the high elevation sun. We also did a sunrise summit hike, summiting at least an hour before sunrise, freezing our asses off for an hour until sunrise, and then booking down in search of warmer weather. We did manage to pose for a sunrise YMCA...