January 24, 2023
Boquete Panama - hiking Volcan Baru
My cycling legs totally needed a break today, but I thought I’d test that thought of using different muscles for hiking than cycling, and go on a 17.4 mile, 6,850 ft elevation gain hike up Volcan Baru! Volcan Baru sits between the towns of Boquete and Volcan (where I was at a couple days ago) up in the high mountains of wester Panama. It is an active stratovolcano, the 12th highest peak in Central America, and the highest point in Panama (see pic of all the radio towers!). But here’s the trivia bit that I like about it; it is known for being the only place on planet Earth where you can stand and see both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans - on a rare clear day. I had been looking forward to this for a while!
I woke up about 3:08 this morning before my 3:30 alarm went off for the taxi to get me at 4 o’clock. It was screaming windy outside, which made me a little nervous. On the way to the trail head after leaving the hotel at 4:00, it started to rain a little bit. All of this started to give me some self-doubt, as I was still in a bit of a tired coma state anyway from not having much sleep and just being in cruise control this morning. I got to the trail head about 4:15. I walked about 300m to the ranger station and checked in there. I flipped through the pages of the log a bit. Mostly 20 and 30-year-olds, but there was one 50-year-old, and one 60-year-old. I figured if they could make it, so could I! Then after leaving the ranger station for a little bit, and not seeing another soul for hours, that self-doubt started to really sink in. What if my bike light goes out? What if… (a myriad of other things)? I certainly did not have the ten hiking essentials with me. I think I had maybe three or four. After all, this wasn’t a hiking trip necessarily, it was a cycling trip, so I didn’t have room for a lot of extra stuff. I did have my knee braces I got yesterday though! I usually do fine on the way up any hike, it’s the way down that I have troubles with, and the steeper it is, the more problems I have. So I went yesterday to hunt down a couple of the braces. The first pharmacy I went to had two different kinds, but they were both size large. I was going to get them anyway, because I didn’t know how many pharmacies there were in town, but the nice girl at the checkout told me about two other pharmacies down the road so I put them into my phone and routed to them (on the bike, which was unloaded - left the bags at the hotel). Eventually, I went to four pharmacies and only found a large and a small elastic knee brace, so I got those two. But when I got back to the hotel, I tried it on the large, and it really didn’t do anything . Oh well, better than nothing. I brought an extra sock with me and some scissors this morning just in case my knee got feeling really bad I could try the nice wool sock. Low and behold as I was hiking in the dark with my bike light in hand, I saw a stuffed pair of socks that somebody must’ve dropped just recently. They looked and smelled clean, they were just bunched up, not even dirty. I carried them for a bit until it got light, and then I stopped and cut off the toes and used the ankle part as the articulating part over the knee. I think that sock was a little bit more stretchy here and larger than my sock that I brought anyway, plus I saved my own nice sock!
Holy crap this trail was steep! And I knew the downhill was going to be more painful. Just the opposite of cycling. It was about three hours until I ran into someone finally, coming down – a German. I asked him if he made it to the top already, and he said no, he just didn’t make it because he was not that athletic. And he was about 20 years younger than me too, but did not have a pack or anything. I ran into the second person coming down in about four hours into my journey. Another German who had stopped for a cigarette break. I don’t see that very often. He said he started in the middle of the night to get up there for sunrise. But he didn’t stay very long because it was 3°C, and there was quite the windchill factor, and he had a lot of clothes on too. He had a big pack, and was a serious, climber and hiker, except for the smoking part I suppose. Although maybe that’s what they do in Germany, more than here. Eventually though, I saw dozens of people before I got to the top, all heavily-dressed. I only passed one group of about half a dozen local citizens they looked like.
Per Gaia, at about 9000 feet or about 8:30am, I started walking in the clouds. That did not give me a lot of encouragement to be able to see much at the top. It was getting muddy here too. It looked like it rained here last night a little bit. I saw more Germans going down than anybody else. Almost exclusively Germans. Maybe a dozen of them and they didn’t look like they were together. Coincidence of that many in Boquete? Of was this that much of a destination location for them? Who knows? I got above the clouds just above 10,000 ft.
There were a lot of people with tents camped out up on the top. I can't imagine dragging that much weight up that much of a slope, but I suppose if you want to get a sunrise view, that beats hiking in the middle of the night. Still, it has to be cold at 11,000 feet. I had read on all trails to bring everything that you had for clothes, and so I did, but I started and ended with just a T-shirt and my bike jersey and that was it, I was fine. In fact on the way back I took off my t-shirt underlayer. Maybe people are used to hiking this from a different climate, or something, as I saw tons of people coming down with balaclavas , beanies, scarfs, and big puffies.
Just over five hours to make it up. I wanted to hurry to get up here before the clouds rolled into the top too much like I had seen the prior couple of days and I did that! However, there were still clouds elsewhere, which again is typical of all of the pictures I've seen. I took my sweet time coming down there. Twice in my life I tried to keep up with my wife on a couple of hiking trips; one coming down from Mount Saint Helens, and one coming back from Eagle Creek - a hike near Portland, and my legs were jello for a week after that - my thighs and quads, especially. I mean, I had to use the handrail to get up and down the stairs! She is so much of a faster and better hiker than I am though. In 2021 with Covid, she logged in over 1000 miles of hiking. And that is with a 15lb pack on her back (thus the better and more prepared hiker than me).
The last few hundred feet was a total scramble. Wow, what an incredible view. Words just cannot describe the view. I could not see the Atlantic because of the clouds though, which is typical of all of the other pictures that I see you too, but I'm pretty sure I saw the Pacific. It is about 75 miles away and was much clearer. I had my victory snack, which was a king size snickers bar. Man, it was just a city of cell towers up there. For the life of me, I have no idea how they bring material up and service them. You really need a monster truck to get up here, and that is when it is dry too.
This hike ranks up there with Mount Adams, and Yosemite half dome as far as my top three strenuous, long, elevation-intense, one day hikes go.
Tomorrow is all break day now. I don’t think I have a muscle in me now that has not been abused and is not angry with me. I would’ve taken a break today and hiked tomorrow, but it’s supposed to rain like a banshee tomorrow. I saw that in the forecast from many days ago. This was the last opportunity to make this hike over the next few days. In fact, I might be riding out in the rain on Thursday.
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