Cerro Chirripó

Chirripó reaches three thousand eight hundred and twenty-one metres, the highest point in Costa Rica, and the climb is a genuine mountain trip rather than a walk: about fourteen kilometres and two thousand metres of ascent from San Gerardo de Rivas to the Crestones base hostel, then a further five kilometres to the summit, usually walked in the dark to arrive for sunrise. On a clear morning both the Pacific and the Caribbean are visible from the top. The upper slopes are páramo, a high-altitude shrubland found nowhere else in Central America outside these mountains, shaped by fires and studded with glacial lakes and the rock towers called Los Crestones.

History

The earliest known people of the Chirripó area were the indigenous Cabécar, and in 1904 Agustín Blessing Presinger became the first known European to climb the peak. The first official trail was built in 1965, leading to a small sheet-metal hut five kilometres from the summit, since replaced by a concrete building that some 7,000 people visit each year, and in 1975 Chirripó National Park was founded, protecting 500 square kilometres of rainforest and mountains around the peak. Wildfires have swept the area several times since 1953, among them in 1976, in the 1990s and in 2012 (Wikipedia, Cerro Chirripó).

The landscape

• The summit at dawn - both oceans visible on a clear morning.
• Los Crestones - the rock towers above the base hostel.
• The páramo - high shrubland unique to the Talamanca range.
• The glacial lakes - remnants of the last ice age in the cirques.

When to go

December to April is the dry season and the only sensible window; the trail closes for maintenance in parts of the wet season. Permits and hostel beds are allocated through an online system and released in advance; they sell out quickly for weekends and holidays.

Good to know

You cannot climb it without a permit and a booked bed at the base hostel, and both are limited and go early. The ascent is long and steep, and altitude affects people who arrive from sea level the day before. The hostel is basic, unheated and cold, with temperatures near freezing at night. Porters can be hired and most people should.

Nearby

San Gerardo de Rivas is the trailhead village; San Isidro is the nearest town.

Key facts