Enveloped by clouds
The dark heart of the mountain
Suffers in silence.
Monday, December 18, 2017
It’s that time of year when the Wispy White Hairs begin to appear in the forests of Panama.
Actually, it’s somewhat of a relief for me to see groups of birders out on the trails. After such a heavy rainy season, I figured sighting them was a good indication that the Quetzal trail was in decent enough shape to run through end to end. I haven’t given that a shot for a couple of months, and usually after such a long spell of rain I would expect that enough large trees would’ve fallen and enough slides would’ve occurred to require quite a bit of clearing by the tour guides and/or Panama’s rangers before it was passable.
I was both right and wrong. The trail was in the worst shape it’s ever been in our three years here. And once I hit a downed staircase I turned around as it looked like a very iffy prospect to try and get through. But then I ran into a dude from Colorado who told me it wasn’t that difficult of a scramble and I had to humbly eat my trail bona fides as this rookie tourist showed me that I was wrong about the trail being impassable. It wasn’t easy mind you, but it was doable.
Hopefully, in the coming weeks the guides and rangers will get out there and clean it up a bit and make it a bit easier for both us graying trail runners and the intrepid birders.
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