Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

March 24-25, 2024

3098m

Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic

Pico Duarte is the highest peak in Dominican Republic and also the highest in the entire Caribbean area, and because it’s an island high point with more than 3000 m elevation this also makes into the list of the “world’s top 100 by prominence”. Loma La Pelona is the second highest in this range but is only a few meters lower so I cannot rule out the possibility that they hadn’t done their surveys properly (both summits are actually covered in trees). To be 100% sure I think one has to do both summits. This was a trip organized by Kathy Rich and Daryn Dodge from California and I was invited by Craig Barlow from that same group. I was reaching out to Craig about El Salvador but decided to join their trip to the Caribbean instead, and this would happen immediately after my slam across Guatemala. There’s no technical difficulty to speak of whatsoever, but this trip is physically demanding with about 50 km distance and close to 3000 m elevation gain, and logistically complicated due to the mandatory requirement of being guided. There’s basically only one company that does the logistics (Guias de Alturas) so the price wouldn’t be cheap. The cost was 305 USD per person for a group of 10, not including the hotel stays, and we booked them for the shortest possible, 2-day package. The itinerary did not include Loma La Pelona nor Pico del Yaque but we managed to squeeze these bonus peaks in, either by not letting the guide(s) know or by requesting and planning in situ with the guides at no extra cost.

The crux was the flights for most of us. I had booked the cheap, direct flight from Guatemala City to Santo Domingo with Arajet but they cancelled my flight after everything else was booked. I had no other alternative so I requested a refund and booked the connecting flights through Miami, with American Airlines. This costed me over 900 CAD which nearly tripled the original price. And then there came a weather system brewing in the southern Florida causing some massive delays. My second leg of the flights got delayed by more than 5 hours but I had planned a full buffer day so I happily killed the time in the airport. That was on Friday. The problem was the Saturday’s flight from Miami was also delayed by more than 5 hours, and that affected our pick-up. As a result we didn’t get to the villa in Jarabocoa until late in the evening. Craig, Cherie and I went out nevertheless for dinner but everyone else opted to sleep instead. The sleep did not come easily as our rooms were not equipped with air conditioning and there was a loud music party in close proximity. I only fell sleep due to exhaustion and I was not happy to pay that place 50 US dollars for the mediocre stay.

The guiding company came at 6:30 am to pick us up with a huge ass truck. All ten of us together with all of our luggage were piled onto the truck bed and we spent the next hour driving to the park’s entrance. We were then combined with another group-of-five which we later learned was from Harvard’s med school. These college kids, though without a lot of mountaineering experience, were able to move more or less at the same pace with us. We all had to be lectured by a park official who did not speak any English but our lead guide was there to translate. We were told to not leave trash, not to start up a fire and never play music loudly on the trail, but I don’t think that guy had gone up this trail in the recent days, as we had plenty of trash, fire and loud music at camp and on parts of the trail. They also gave each of us a wrist tag and we must wear that throughout the trip, as if we were prisoners in some Russian concentration camps. Some people might think that’s cool, but I’m not a fan of these pre-hike authorization processes. Nevertheless I accepted whatever I was given, left one of the luggage at the trail-head, gave the other piece of luggage (a duffle bag) to the donkeys to carry and started the hike with everyone else. The stoke level was high but I knew this would eventually turn into a death march. As a result I on-purposely started as the last person in the gang.

The distance of the approach to the campsite was about 18 km and the elevation gain was about 1600 m, and en route we would do a short bushwhacking detour to check out Pico del Yaque. This approach can be divided into three stages. The first stage was the initial few kilometers where the terrain was mostly flat and we plodded alongside a river. We crossed this river (more like a stream) multiple times on wooden bridges and there were some muddy stretches to content with. I think we took at least one break at one of the “rest stops”, mostly to regroup. The next stage was a long but gradual ascent for 800 vertical meters onto the broad SE Ridge of Pico del Yaque. The trail gradually transitioned from “dirty” to “rocky” and we would certainly not appreciate that rocky stuffs on the way out a day later. We again, took numerous breaks to regroup and the day was starting to become very hot. The weather was apparently not ideal for hiking but at least we were only carrying our day-packs so I wouldn’t complain. We then plodded up the SE Ridge of Pico del Yaque until we were less than 100 vertical meters from the summit on the north slopes. A few of us had discussed the possibility of tagging this peak on the approach day so I waited until Craig J. and Linda showed up. The three of us made a quick dash up the north slopes to the summit thrashing through some boulder fields covered in high grass. The terrain was awful and required a lot of care, as we constantly discovered hidden holes that could easily twist an ankle. The summit was forested and the weather was mostly cloudy so most of us who went there regretted. I considered this bonus peak a classic “type 2 fun”, that we sure did not enjoy it while doing it, but will appreciate our determination many years later when we look back at our 2024’s peak-logs.

I led us descending more towards NW and rejoined the main trail soon, and this was when Kathy and Daryn showed up. Daryn decided instantly to also check out this bonus peak (and regretted), whereas Kathy and I hiked together for a while, traversing up and over the next bump. At this point we were underneath Loma La Rucilla and the trail would traverse across its entire south slopes while losing 300 m elevation to the campsite. By this point we had done our fair share of elevation gain on Day 1, but we wouldn’t appreciate this stretch a day later. I went ahead, caught up to Hans, Keith, Sung and the group of Harvard kids and we hiked together to the campsite. Our stay would be in a massive ass “hut”, so we laid out our camping gears. I took the corner spot as I showed up there early, and I took Adam Walker’s advice (also from my own experience) to bring my own sleeping bag and mattress even though they promised to provide us their own. The quality of the gears in these 3rd world countries was nowhere comparable to our own and I’m someone who refused to use those crappy and cheap shits. I ended up blowing my own air mattress and used it on top of the one given by the company, and that worked out nicely. That group of college kids showed me a nearby stream where I could take a cold shower. I did appreciate the rinsing but the price I paid was ~25 m elevation loss and regain. The food served by the company was satisfactory but the workers there was making a massive fire with lots of smokes, and was playing some loud music until at least 9 pm when everyone was trying to sleep.

I did get a few hours of sleep because I was exhausted, but I woke up at around 1 am and couldn’t sleep anymore. I listened to some music while waiting for everyone else getting up, which was around 3:30 am. The plan was not clear at all because at least half of us wanted to include Loma La Pelona in, whereas the guide was acting as an authority, stating that we could go, but not without a guide. The new plan was for the “faster group” to wake up early, summit Pico Duarte at dawn and meet the guide back at the Duarte/Pelona trail junction who would be with the “slower group”. I started about 15 minutes later than the “faster group” because I wasn’t too keen on summitting another important peak in the dark without seeing anything. I ended up catching up to that group at about a quarter of the way up, and I was surprised that they were not accompanied by a guide, aka. the authority. My way of doing would be to speed things up, summit Loma La Pelona in the dark (without a guide) and meet the other group on the summit of Pico Duarte because we were essentially “free” at this point so nobody could point a gun on us saying we must follow the order, but the group wanted to stick to the plan. I was not quite happy about it, but then if we slowed further down we could still get some views from the highest peak by shivering on the summit for a bit, so I eventually gave in. There’s even a “rest stop” at the trail junction that allowed us to take a break and that further slowed things down, that by the time we were not far from the summit of Pico Duarte we could already see the predawn horizon. A few of us there lingered on the summit for about half an hour, not quite till sunrise but long enough to get some excellent views.

We then dashed back down to the trail junction and joined the rest of the team that wanted to also hike Loma La Pelona. Our guide for this secondary objective would be a kid on his horseback but I took off ahead as usual and summitted on my own pace. The final push to the true summit was off trail and reminded me a little bit of the high grass on Pico del Yaque in the previous day, but not nearly as bad. The true summit was unfortunately forested without any view, but there’s an old and broken fire tower. I went up and down and got some nice photos but the last few meters were sketchy. Craig B. showed up minutes later and did the same, but the rest of the group that arrived with the kid guide got denied, as the tower was apparently “illegal” to climb. But then that kid got off his horseback and climbed it himself and did not give a fuck about that, and that really pissed several of us off. I was not about to make an argument because I’d already got what I wanted, but I would 100% give him a hard time if I spoke fluent Spanish but hadn’t climbed that tower myself. In any case I dashed/jogged down together with Daryn and I had to work quite hard to keep up with the pace. After catching up to Kathy I went ahead and joined the rest of the team that did not go for that secondary objective at the campsite. The breakfast was served in a few minutes. The plan was made to leave at 10 am so I went back to the dorm to take a nap after having the late breakfast.

A few of us opted for a head start whereas I went down at exactly 10 am. I rushed and caught up to Craig B. right after that annoying 300-m regain and the two of us descended together afterwards. We took one break at one of the rest stops where they served us pineapples in the previous day. There was no treat today, nor were we counting on that. However, we later learnt that they were serving everyone fresh watermelons so Craig and I were too early for that, but that’s okay. We finished the plod at 1:50 pm and concluded the 50-km death march. There’s a really nice cook serving us lunch, and we also got ourselves soaked at a nearby river. About 2 hours later everyone else including that group of Harvard kids showed up and all 15 of us were loaded onto that same truck bed to be transported back to Jarabacoa. I forgot to keep my sunglasses handy and my eyes were not liking the dusts and the vehicles’ exhausts in these developing countries so I closed my eyes and attempted another nap. I wasn’t 100% sure but I did think I fell asleep briefly. Kathy had booked one of the nicest hotels in the vicinity with high speed wifi, air conditioning, hot showers, a swimming pool and free buffet breakfast and the cost was only 96 USD for a two-person room. The dinner in this hotel was not as cheap though and costed 52 USD just for myself. The next day we woke up more or less naturally and took a bus ride back to Santo Domingo to conclude our smash-and-grab in Dominican Republic.