Volcan Baru

Peaks: Volcan Baru (3,474m/11,398ft)
Area: Cordillera de Talamanca, Chiriqui, Panama
The highest peak in Panama and a very obvious objective from Boquete: seemingly ideal (if unconventional) marathon training, as it lent itself to a running approach. It is a long way though, 30km up and down over a fairly notable vertical interval, and apparently takes backpackers at least six hours to get up. They usually go up at night then down the next day, so I had the trail almost to myself after getting a taxi to El Salto, the end of the road from Boquete at around 8am. Another beautiful morning, with distant clouds boiling up from the hills towards the Pacific side, framed against coffee plantations. The track is rough and rubbly, surprisingly steep in places, but it does have the virtue of directness and occasionally gives views through the cloud forest. Some good, if intermittent, birdlife enlivened the climb: the near endemic black guan and long-tailed silky flycatcher were especially notable. After around 3k, a couple of fincas were passed - beautiful pastoral farmland with very surprising scenery, felt like I was back home for a while. Higher up, more conventional cloud forest although the weather remained crystal clear - which is obviously very unusual, even at the height of the dry season (as this was). I ran a fair bit of the way, walking the steep sections and jogging where the angle eased a bit. The main concern was water. I'd taken 1.2 litres which I knew would be pushing it, but calculated that it would just about be enough. There wasn't much margin, so I rationed it a bit. Eventually, an obvious spur is reached which gives views of the main peak. Sadly, a sharp descent is then necessary to gain the final climb up the summit. The actual top is along a miniature ridge with a tiny bit of scrambling and exposure: over 2.5 hours to the top from El Salto. Superb views. In theory, you can see the Caribbean and Pacific from the summit. The views east over the giant summit crater spanned the village of Volcan, wispy clouds thousands of feet below the summit, right over to the Caribbean coast. Further north, the cloud forest stretched across to the Costa Rica border (only 20km or so away). The Pacific side was cloudier, as they stretched their tendrils over the low forested ridges on this side of Volcan Baru. The peak is very isolated, it dominates the entire region, so the views are not your typical summit landscapes. Instead, big horizons and a real sense of space is the predominant feeling. After a bite to eat, and some more of the precious water, I set off at a sustainable running pace downhill. This was long, extremely dusty and quite hot, particularly as I got lower. But I covered the ground quite quickly back to the trailhead. Then I just had the problem of getting back to Boquete! I ran out of water 2km from the road, finding a tap at the entrance to the national park: but no water came out, just dust. I continued jogging down the tarmac road, dehydrated now. After a couple of miles (on top of the 30km I had already done!) I met two Ngabe people who showed me a tap near the road. Then, a bit lower, a taxi passed as I gained a road junction so I hopped in that for the few miles back to Boquete. An excellent late lunch of garlic chicken, plantain, rice and beans was a fine way to refuel.