The Mighty Mt. Chirripo (a long story)

***Disclaimer:  Though mostly true, parts of this adventure have been exaggerated for your entertainment purposes!

Once upon a time in Costa Rica, there were three young heroes who decided to prove to everyone how tough they were by conquering the mighty mountain of Chirripo. Now, normally a mountain would not be a challenge for the fit young heroes, because after all, they grew up in very mountainous areas, such as Charleston and Holland. What is the tallest mountain in Costa Rica compared Mt. Pleasant, SC… nothing they thought! One thing they didn’t realize is that Mt. Chirripo is the tallest mountain in all of Central America…much taller than the mountain in Mt. Pleasant.
But this did not deter the three heroes. Keep in mind, they were heroes after all!  So early one morning, earlier than the first rooster call, the three set out to conquer the mighty Mt. Chirripo.  All they had with them were their bags with food for the journey, clothes for the long cold night that they would endure at the top of the mountain, and their walking sticks.  As they set off they looked at the map to see just how far they would need to go to conquer the mountain. The map said 14 kilometers. “That does not seem very long,” said one of the heroes. “Nor does it look very steep,” said another. “We should be able to complete this mountain in less than 5 hours,” said the last hero. “That would be good for me. I would like to enjoy a nice meal and a nap once we get to the top,” said one of the heroes under her breath. Once final checks were made at the base of the mountain, they started walking. Their first realization that the map might have been a little wrong was how steep the first 30 min. felt. “This is a very steep hill!” said the first hero. “Its no problem” said the hero behind her, “Once we get over the hill, we should be able to see the mountain and it will be smooth walking”. As the second hero looked over he saw a small square stone on the ground. “Look! That must be a marker for the first kilometer! We have already done one kilometer and it took almost no time at all! This will be no problem!” Little did the heroes realize was that this was no marker at all. They kept hiking and hiking for what seemed to be forever up this “hill” that seemed to get steeper and steeper. Because they had already reached what they thought to be the third kilometer they took a few breaks to eat food, drink, and joke amongst each other. Then as they rounded a sharp corner their hearts sank. Down the path they saw a large sign, and what was written on the sign drove a knife straight into the heart of the poor heroes. “Welcome to kilometer One” read the sign. “I thought we had to be on at least kilometer 3!” cried one of the heroes. “We have only gone one kilometer!” yelled another. The three heroes sat for a moment and thought. “Well, I guess this one kilometer was a long one. The rest should be easy, I mean, we have most likely done the tough part, right….?” said the first hero. “I think you might be right” said the third hero, sitting on a rock. “Well, let’s get going, I saw that there was a place to get water and take a break half way to the top, if we walk fast we should get there in an hour. And because we should have flat roads from here on out, we would be able to get there very quickly.” So with that the three heroes threw their bags on and started to walk as quickly as they could to kilometer 7, the half way point. Now, there is something very interesting about walking up hill.  Sometimes it feels like you are going almost nowhere. You put all your energy in walking up what seems to be a mile, but when you look back you find out that you have only gone a few yards! Needless to say, our heroes did not make it to the half way point in one hour. In fact, it took about 4 hours. “When will we reach the flat part you were talking about?” yelled one of the heroes. “I’m not sure…” he yelled back, “it feels like we have been walking up hill for hours and hours.” “That’s because we have been!” yelled the third hero. “LOOK! I see the half way shelter!” And with that all three heroes sprang into a sprint and dove onto the shelter porch, crawling to get to the water and seats.

Now, anyone who has seen a fish out of water knows that it is not a pleasant site. The look of the animal gasping for air, flopping around, trying to move in a world that it does not belong in, wondering what has happened to it and if this is truly the end of its life. Our poor heroes looked very similar to this. It must have been unnerving to the other heroes passing by. “Should we help them?” a passing hero muttered to her companion. “How much more uphill do you think we have to go?” “It surely can’t be much more, we have already gone higher than what the mountain must be; maybe the rest of the way is downhill…. Maybe there is a tall hill between the start and the mountain and we just passed over it.” Once the three heroes were able to regain enough strength to put their bags on and grab their walking sticks, they decided to press on. There might have been a lengthy debate on whether or not they should turn back, but with all the other passing heroes, they surely could not turn back. They would be the talk of the land if they returned before they should. So with their new found strength and determination to not be thought of as cowards, they left for the top. The start of kilometer 8 was indeed flat and that made the three heroes extremely happy. “See I told you so,” said one of the heroes. But just at that moment, as if by a cruel fate, a man passed by and yelled “Good luck to you all, you are about to start the second hardest part of the whole climb. The next three kilometers are straight up”. “What!!! We have already been going straight up,” yelled one of the heroes. “Yep and you’re going to keep going straight up,” the passing man yelled back. “What is the hardest part?” yelled the first hero. “You’ll know when you get there,” chuckled the man as he walked by. “Maybe he is lying,” one of the heroes said hopefully. “He just wants us to turn around.” Well, sadly for the three heroes, the passing man was not lying, though he did leave out an important detail. The next kilometer was strait up, followed by two more kilometers that where even steeper than the last one. The heroes walked and walked, and had to stop just about every 200 feet to catch their breath.  “It should be getting flat now because the man said it was steep for 3 kilometers”. “Look, I see the kilometer marker, which means the hard part should be over!” This is where the three heroes found out the detail the man left out.  The steep part was not just last 3 kilometers, but the next one as well!  A kilometer might not seem like much, but after you have been hiking for 7 hours every steep is like a thousand miles.  You even start to lose track of time and space, and find yourself lost in your thoughts about why you even started this hike.  Not only are you fighting the mountain and your fatigue, but your own thoughts. This extra kilometer almost did the three heroes in. Thinking that it will get easier only to find out that it gets harder and harder can drive even the strongest minded people to insanity. But the three heroes kept pushing on. They were not going to be deterred or beaten by this mountain. They were not going to turn around. Even if one or even two of them were to die climbing the mountain, the third would drag their bodies to the top! They were going to prevail! This is when the three heroes finally made it to kilometer 13. The last kilometer lay ahead. The three heroes were too tired to take a break.  In fact, they were too tired to even think. They just walked, if you can even call it walking. It was more like stumbling, a feeble attempt to move the legs in a walking motion. Most people would call it the walk of the dead; a stumble or convulsion of the legs with forward momentum. But the heroes kept going. They kept moving. They did not talk, they did not laugh anymore. Well, sometimes they did, but not because they were happy…because they were starting to lose their minds. In fact, a few times the heroes went into a laughing fit that could not be stopped because they no longer had control over their own bodies. Maybe the laughing was a way for the body to trick itself into thinking that the hike was fun. In what seemed to be hours, but was in fact one hour, the heroes finally made it to the last 14k kilometer sign. You would think there would be great excitement and tears of happiness that they made it to the end, but there were none…for two reasons. The first being there was no more energy left in their bodies to be happy but, also because in front of them was still another uphill path to go. They did not complain that they had to keep walking, they knew they were near. So they just walked and walked and walked until they finally saw the real end. A cabin nestled in the mountain of Chirripo.  A rainbow in the sky lead straight to the cabin and it seemed to be a sign that they had finally made it. (This is totally true by the way!) They stumbled into the cabin, threw the bags down, collapsed to the floor, and looked up. There stood a young lady and man who had also done the hike that day. The three heroes looked at the young lady and with tears in their eyes they said, “How long did it take you to get to the top, we have been hiking for 9 hours and did not see you at all”. “Ohh… it took us 5 hours, it was a cinch,” replied the young lady with an evil smirk on her face. With that little comment she turned around and left laughing under her breath. You would think the torment would be over for the three young heroes but sadly it was not. Next came the king of the cabin and gave a long, drawn out lecture on how the three heroes had packed too much. (This was just his way of saying the heroes should have cheated and used a porter).

Now this all seems like a bad ending for the three heroes but it is not. Even though the mountain was much harder than they thought it would be, and there was no warm welcome for them waiting at the top, they did leave the mountain with one realization; they had conquered the mountain. These three heroes, who all came from lands where mountains did not exist, challenged, overcame and conquered one of the mightiest mountain in all the lands of Central America.  And what they left with was a thirst to be challenged again, to conquer more mountains in other faraway lands, and to see what their breaking point really is… because Chirripo had tried and failed to do so.