40km and 48 hours later, I am back at our Rainforest base having summited Costa Rica’s highest mountain. I must say the entire experience is something I will remember for the rest of my life. It was the most challenging, invigorating, blissful, and painful journey, and worth every single Kilometer.
I made the journey with four other girls, and we left for our hike on the 8th. Kaari and I met with Kat, Sarah and Amelia (who by the way works with us, lives by Chirripó, guides people up the mountain, and has summited the mountain 76 times…WOAH) the night before to eat pizza and get all the details of our trip squared away..and by details I mean deciding if we should leave at 4am or 4:30am…. It was more or less an excuse for a ‘last supper’ aka wine and pizza..we decided to leave by 4:30am, and that next day we were off!
It was 14km to the base camp, and it took us approximately 9.5hours to finally get there. Between the intensity of the hike, and our huge backpacks, we took it pretty slow. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of girls to hike with. No matter how thick the mud was that we were slipping on and getting stuck in, how steep the rocky hills were that we had to climb up, or how annoying the bugs were that were constantly swarming us, no one complained. We were always down for a good laugh, or riddles to make the time pass, and at each kilometer marker we stopped to act out the names. You see they all had different names, and we couldn’t think of any better way and fun thing to do than act them out; for example:
Clearly we had a blast!
Kilometer 9 taught me that Chirripó is literally no joke, and 13 tested all of us. Getting to base camp was the most gratifying thing, all of us were ready to pass out and EAT. It was about 2:30pm by the time we reached base camp. We got to our room and immediately changed out of our wet clothes and into some warm ones, and out of our muddy boots. Let me just say, our room was smelling mighty lovelyyy after that 😉 After playing ‘hi and lows’ of the day, reminiscing about how we basically almost died on the hike up, how our pictures were hilarious, and how amazing it all was, we got to bed ready to get up at 2:00am to summit the mountain and see the sunrise.
2:00am the next morning we woke us, loaded up on oatmeal and eggs (protein and carbs, protein and carbs) and set out to summit. We had 5km to get to the top, and we were determined to see the sunrise. Walking out of the base in the morning was gorgeous. It was pitch black outside and all you could see were the millions of stars, and silhouettes of the mountains that were surrounding us. It was absolutely beautiful and made for a very peaceful morning hike. Thank goodness we had Amelia with us though because if we didn’t we would’ve either gotten lost, or probably walked off a boulder and into the dam because it was so dark and at times it was hard to know which way to go…
Anyways, as we began to see the sky get lighter, our pace picked up a little bit and once we could finally see Chirripó in the distance we couldn’t wait to get to the top. The last 300m were slightly terrifying but also amazing. It was basically a straight vertical climb up rocky terrain. The only way to get up was using your hands and feet, climb, and in my case not look down. I’m not very scared of heights but this little bit scared me a little. All I could think about was putting my foot on a loose rock, slipping, and seriously injuring myself…and then all the sudden I rounded a corner, and there it was: The Costa Rican flag, and Chirripó sign.
Summiting the mountain was the most gratifying, blissful, amazing experience. Kaari and I reached the top first, and as everyone else made their way up one of the guys at the top commented ‘The suns waiting for you!” and who would’ve thought that quote would stay with us forever. All we wanted to see was the sunrise, and five minutes later the sun came up, and we enjoyed the sunrise at the summit. The sun really had waited for us.
We took some amazing photos, and spent about an hour or so there before going to the bottom.
We had to be all the way back to the bottom by 3pm, so we spent two hours making it to the basecamp, ate, and walked the 5 in a half hours back to the bottom. They were the most painful five in a half hours of my life and I swear my body was just like ‘what the hell are doing to me’.. you would think going downhill would be easy, but it wasn’t. But we all trucked through and again, no complainers. It was an amazing experience, and while my legs still feel like they are going to fall off, and my body is in total recovery mode, I still cannot believe we summited Costa Rica’s highest mountain. It was truly an unforgettable adventure and I couldn’t have asked for a more amazing group of girls to travel with!
Oh, forgot.. once everyone left the mountain, we took some fun photos by ourselves…… viewer discretion advised 😉
Un buen viaje!! Costa Rica, you will be missed.
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