Last September or October... I don't really remember I climb Pico Duarte with a bunch of friends from school. I wasn't in the best shape at the time but I do remember thinking that I just wanted to rip off some miles on the mountain and get after it. The nature of the trip did allow this, but it was a lot of fun anyhow.
This brings us to a few months ago when I decided to give it another go and this time see how fast I could do it. The mountain is the tallest in the Caribbean and is somewhere over 10,000 feet tall. The trail from La Cienaga starts out at about 3,600 hundred feet, but the downside/upside is that you still manage somewhere between 9,000 - 10,000 feet of elevation gain along the 46 kilometers.
My first date to do this was cancelled because of some wildfires near the park, bummer. That meant we randomly chose today and today it happened. My expected partners in this attempt changed a few times, but it ended up being a friend from school, Daniel Gutierrez. Daniel and I left for La Cienaga yesterday shortly after school got out. We made the journey via motos and arrived just in time to meet our guide and for him to offer us dinner at his house. Having a guide is used as an economic stimulus, it provides jobs for locals and in turn they maintain the trails and get you access to said trails. For a group like us the guide was merely a formality and somewhat of a safety net, as he (Radamel) was heading up the mountain after us and if we wrecked ourselves we would have had a free ride down on his mule. Our cost for having a guide was somewhere around $60 total, this cost is what it is because you have to pay for 3 days whether you use them or not. If your Spanish is good unlike mine, you can manage better deals with some of the guides depending on what you want to do and how long you plan on taking.
Now for the climbing part... We got up at 4:30 am today and got ready for a strenuous affair. We were on the trail shortly after 5 which was great because the whether was cool, the downside to it was that I forgot my headlamp and had to lead the way using the light from Daniel's. After about an hour the headlamp was turned off and we had decent light to guide us, the sunrise was beautiful and all was going well. I say that, but my knee hurt really bad (oddly enough that pain just disappeared). After a couple hours of climbing Daniel was clearing hurting and he gave me the go ahead to push my pace. This allowed me to get in my groove and be at a couple of the stopping points way ahead of schedule. At about 3 hours in I stopped to refill my handheld with some water although it was still about half way full of coke/water. I borrowed a camelback from a friend that I managed to never refill throughout the day and the tortilla/pb/raisin wraps, almond slices and raisin mix, and fig newtons managed to be almost the perfect food for the day. After refilling I busted it the 5k to the top and managed to be there at right around 4 hours and 10 minutes. The downside to this was that my groin started cramping, and my thighs were chaffing something fierce on the way up (note to self, generously apply body glide and bring more quick sugar to keep the cramps away).
The way down the mountain I planned on absolutely killing it, but I forgot about how terrible the rocks are; they are freaking everywhere and are waiting to end your day. I also forgot how horrible a nice little 2,000 ascent was, who goes up hill that far after you have already summited. I managed to fight the cramps, and the chaffing went away by the time I was a good way down the mountain. I would have liked to open up the legs more on the downhills not cluttered by rocks, but I feared the groin cramp attacking me. The last few miles are rather runnable also, and I tried my darndest, but it was rough and I in the end I made it back to the trail-head in just over 7:36. I am happy about this and I think it sets a reasonable FKT that I hope somebody comes and drops a couple hours from. Daniel made it back in somewhere just over 8:26 which is now the second fastest time the mountain has seen.
Garmin Link
This brings us to a few months ago when I decided to give it another go and this time see how fast I could do it. The mountain is the tallest in the Caribbean and is somewhere over 10,000 feet tall. The trail from La Cienaga starts out at about 3,600 hundred feet, but the downside/upside is that you still manage somewhere between 9,000 - 10,000 feet of elevation gain along the 46 kilometers.
My first date to do this was cancelled because of some wildfires near the park, bummer. That meant we randomly chose today and today it happened. My expected partners in this attempt changed a few times, but it ended up being a friend from school, Daniel Gutierrez. Daniel and I left for La Cienaga yesterday shortly after school got out. We made the journey via motos and arrived just in time to meet our guide and for him to offer us dinner at his house. Having a guide is used as an economic stimulus, it provides jobs for locals and in turn they maintain the trails and get you access to said trails. For a group like us the guide was merely a formality and somewhat of a safety net, as he (Radamel) was heading up the mountain after us and if we wrecked ourselves we would have had a free ride down on his mule. Our cost for having a guide was somewhere around $60 total, this cost is what it is because you have to pay for 3 days whether you use them or not. If your Spanish is good unlike mine, you can manage better deals with some of the guides depending on what you want to do and how long you plan on taking.
Now for the climbing part... We got up at 4:30 am today and got ready for a strenuous affair. We were on the trail shortly after 5 which was great because the whether was cool, the downside to it was that I forgot my headlamp and had to lead the way using the light from Daniel's. After about an hour the headlamp was turned off and we had decent light to guide us, the sunrise was beautiful and all was going well. I say that, but my knee hurt really bad (oddly enough that pain just disappeared). After a couple hours of climbing Daniel was clearing hurting and he gave me the go ahead to push my pace. This allowed me to get in my groove and be at a couple of the stopping points way ahead of schedule. At about 3 hours in I stopped to refill my handheld with some water although it was still about half way full of coke/water. I borrowed a camelback from a friend that I managed to never refill throughout the day and the tortilla/pb/raisin wraps, almond slices and raisin mix, and fig newtons managed to be almost the perfect food for the day. After refilling I busted it the 5k to the top and managed to be there at right around 4 hours and 10 minutes. The downside to this was that my groin started cramping, and my thighs were chaffing something fierce on the way up (note to self, generously apply body glide and bring more quick sugar to keep the cramps away).
The way down the mountain I planned on absolutely killing it, but I forgot about how terrible the rocks are; they are freaking everywhere and are waiting to end your day. I also forgot how horrible a nice little 2,000 ascent was, who goes up hill that far after you have already summited. I managed to fight the cramps, and the chaffing went away by the time I was a good way down the mountain. I would have liked to open up the legs more on the downhills not cluttered by rocks, but I feared the groin cramp attacking me. The last few miles are rather runnable also, and I tried my darndest, but it was rough and I in the end I made it back to the trail-head in just over 7:36. I am happy about this and I think it sets a reasonable FKT that I hope somebody comes and drops a couple hours from. Daniel made it back in somewhere just over 8:26 which is now the second fastest time the mountain has seen.
Garmin Link
Roughly the route.
Sunrise
More sunrise
Enjoying the journey
It took me a bit to take the pic
Life on top!
This is all I have ever seen on top of Duarte
Daniel finishing
