San Gerardo de Rivas

“The light at altitude is unlike anywhere else”

San Gerardo de Rivas sits at 1,350 metres in the valley below Chirripó, and its entire existence is shaped by the mountain above it. The SINAC ranger station at the village edge is where summit permits are checked, gear weighed, and the pre-dawn departures begin. Most hikers leave between 3am and 4am to reach the base refuge — 14 kilometres and 2,400 metres of elevation gain — before the afternoon clouds make the exposed upper slopes cold and wet. Below the ranger station, the Río Chirripó runs through river boulders large enough to sit on, and several lodges have thermal pools heated by volcanic activity in the riverbed. The village itself is a working agricultural community — small farms, dairy cattle, vegetable gardens — that happens to sit at the foot of the highest peak in Central America. On non-permit days the trail as far as the cloud forest can be walked freely and offers good birding without the summit commitment.