Cerro Chirripo

At 3,821 metres it's the highest peak in Costa Rica, and one of the more serious mountains on the planet — 37th most prominent summit in the world, apparently. Mostly because on a clear morning you can both the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean from the summit.

Chirripó only lets sixty people up a day, permits released six months ahead through the park service, so when a cancellation slot appeared I grabbed it trusting the rest of the trip to Costa Rica could be fitted around it.
My wife was convinced to stayed behind at a hotel by a waterfall — amazing spot, water crashing past the window all night — except the local cat had other ideas about sleeping arrangements and adopted her as its own, clawing her at intervals through the night.

I set off a bit late. The path was muddy from the start, and within the first hour I'd been overtaken by a string of locals driving horses loaded with supplies — the animals unbothered, sure-footed, trotting by. The forest thinned as I climbed, bare, scrubby, more Andes than Central America — you start to feel it's a proper mountain rather than a long walk.
Six hours later I arrived at the refugio — Crestones, sat at 3,400 metres, about 5km short of the summit — last arrival of the day, and the only one who'd done it solo, everyone else in groups. Got a round of applause for turning up. Dinner was a communal, self-serve affair, presumably from the supplies the horses brought up.
One climber at dinner didn't seem quite right — couldn't stop laughing, at nothing in particular. Altitude, maybe. Inevitably, he turned out to be my roommate. He was also, it emerged, a champion snorer. Didn't much matter in the end — we were up at 2am for the summit push anyway, headlamps on, the temperature near freezing.
The last stretch turns into a scramble over boulders rather than a walk, and you arrive at the top in the dark not entirely sure where the edges are. Then the light starts, slowly,— peaks and lakes emerging out of nothing, other summiters from half a dozen countries standing around in the cold saying not much. On a clear day you're supposed to see both the Pacific and the Caribbean at once from the same spot — they looked a bit too far away to me.

Came back down to the refugio in warm sun for breakfast, properly earned this time.

A pleasant stroll down the mountain getting warmer and warmer in the path under the trees. Stopped for coffee at a hut I hadn’t seen on the way up. Here I met Ricky the Racoon who loved the peanuts I tossed him. I adopted him – as my Whatsapp profile image. I didn’t realise I had until years later when someone asked me what that animla was in my pic.

A round trip of 24 hours, 2 of them for sleeping, was rewarded with a local, illicitly brewed IPA — and fond complaints from my wife about her replacement companion for the night.

I'm not allowed to say it but that the climb was the highlight of our two weeks in Costa Rica.

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