Blog About Baru

The journey has truly begun! Yesterday I summited Panama's highest volcano, Baru (3478
m) and commenced my project to circumnavigate the Pacific "Ring of Fire", climbing at
least one volcano in each country on the rim.

There's nothing too difficult about climbing Volcan Baru - most people wander up in
sneakers on the road that accesses the greatest array of antennae I've ever seen on one
mountain top. But one can make it a bit more challenging. I managed that in a couple of
ways - taking the least trodden path from Volcan on the western side without a guide and
timing my hike for the middle of the rainy season.

It was an opportunity too good to miss - to do a climb that traversed the mountain, rather
than retracing my steps after a summit as is usually the case. There is a trail only the
locals use, and scant information about it. I found useful tips on SummitPost, and set off
with some map images in my head and a few hastily copied notes. I elected not to hire a
guide as my sources said it wasn't necessary but that the trail was easy to lose in places.
Also I went well-prepared with overnight gear, a change of clothes, extra food, an iPhone
with Google Maps, and an excellent weather forecast.

My day started from Pedregal where I had left Whakaari in a rudimentary dock. That
journey, sailing from the Gulf of Chiriqui inland through incredible tidal waterways I
never dreamed could exist, is a whole story in itself. Anyway, at 8am I was at the road
end setting out for an expected easy hike, with a comfortable camp in the crater before
completing the ascent in time for sunrise and the much talked about views of two oceans.

By midday I was not only four hours into my
day but not much higher on the mountain
after losing the trail and expending precious
energy on a ridge to nowhere. It was a severe
lesson in paying attention and not allowing
 myself to be distracted by the beautiful
sub-alpine flora. I soon learned that keeping
to the poorly marked and little used trail was
simply a matter of looking for litter.
No litter? Go back and find and be back on track.
There wasn't a lot of height gain to be made
on this volcano, at least not like the climbs I
had done in Ecuador and Bolivia last year.
The starting altitude was 1600 meters giving
me only 1900 meters to ascend, so the delayed
start didn't concern me too much.


I continued to stop and enjoy the views back out over Volcan, the many and varied alpine
flowering plants, from huge cacti-like agaves to edelweiss and some very impressive
mistletoes parasitising very Rata-like trees.


By dark I entered the crater through towering natural
rock gates but the last two hours had been a deluge
of driven rain, thunder and lightening, forcing me to
push on without rest stops.
On a section of scree there had been a metal cable laid but I elected not to use it due to the lightening strikes. They were all around me, and frighteningly close.
Over the past two months I've become accustomed to the tropical warmth of Panama. This storm chilled my core.
Once in the crater my urgent task was to find shelter---and fast. I saw some old iron among the rocks that I could use and found that it was covering an old rock bivvy that
someone before me had left lined with tussock grass.
I was in luck!

The main crater (one of seven), my bivvy was right of centre
below a small slip

The next two hours were a slow tedious time of lighting the stove with frozen hands, stripping off wet gear,and warming up. The storm hammered on thru the night requiring continual attention to
the roof to keep it from blowing away and trying to get some sleep. By 4:30 am the storm had passed and the sky was clear and moonlit.







An hour later I set off for the summit taking a direct route up thru the tangled
monkey scrub and was soon standing amidst hundreds of antennae, satellite dishes,
and generator sheds complete with the usual inane grafitti.

Approaching the summit, I could just make out a group of people ahead of me thru the
mist - the mountain now enveloped in cloud. I hadn't seen anyone on the approach but of
course these were the usual people who had hiked the normal route on the 4-wheel drive
track from Boquete. I enjoyed being able to speak English with these backpackers from the USA, France, and Germany.

After they headed on down, I spent some
time waiting for glimpses thru the clouds
to Boca del Toro and Caribbean to the east,
and the Pacific out to the west.








It was a satisfying moment to realize my project had commenced and here was my first volcano summit on the Ring of Fire circumnavigation.





All that remained was to take a few photos when the clouds thinned, and plod the 14 km down
the 4WD track to Boquete,

I found the downhill much more painful
than the ascent, with old knees, a recent
groin strain,and sore feet saying "Enough!"

But as usual, chatting with my new
companions as we made our descent,
and the promise of celebratory drinks
numbed the pain and soon I was resting
up at the Boquete Baru Bar with a cold beer.
Job done!