How to get there:
First, contact Elias Mantero on Whatsapp +1 (809) 205-2101. Tell that you want to climb this mountain
and ask if he may be able to help, specify your preferred date and any other practical information.
Do write in Spanish, if needed use Google Translate to produce a Spanish message.
From the capital, Santo Domingo, travel west, then north-west towards San Juan de la Maguana.
Shortly before this town, fork left and drive to the small village Vallejuelo. Continue north-west
to location N18.71461, W71.50046, turn sharply left here and drive about 2.5 kilometer south.
Near the end of this drive, fork right (uphill).
The precise location of the house were Elias lives is N18.69203, W71.49720.
His house is a little off the
road (on your right), ask anybody there if necessary.
This is the trailhead, the ascent will start from this house.
Route description:
Walk back up to the narrow (paved) road and follow it to its end. Continue on a dirt
farm-road a few kilometer, then take a trail that climbs right more steeply.
A track is posted on Peakbagger, download this. You will do this climb with a local
guide, most likely Elias or his brother Victor. They will ride a mule and show the way.
The trail continues uphill, mostly through or near farm land.
The general direction is south-west. Higher up, the trail
runs through nice pine forest.
Eventually, you will ascend gently on a ridge
that runs south-west. However, the summit
is located at the end of a different ridge running south. A shallow vally separates the
two ridges. Descend into this little valley, follow my posted track as it turns right and
hits a barbed wire fence. Crawl under this fence, then turn directly left and climb to
the top of the ridge where again you will find a good trail. (Ignore the
track as it makes a detour north before going south on the ridge.)
When you are on top of this ridge, follow the trail south. It becomes more faint, but
one should find a way through some dense jungle bush. You will emerge onto the top
area. There is vegetation, a pretty big pine seems to be located near the highest
ground. This pine has 2 nails placed there by the first peakbaggers on this top,
Adam Helman and Bob Packard in January 2005.
Comments:
I was based in Punta Cana, about as far away from this peak as you can get.
This was actually only a brief stop on the way from Bolivia to Europe. For some unknown
(to me) reason Lufthansa did not offer a flight directly from Bogota to Frankfurt.
My two choices were a transit in the USA (heaven forbid, in particular with Trump as president)
or via Punta Cana. Since I had not climbed this ultra, I then decided to spend a few days
in Punta Cana.
I had reserved a rental car and planned to drive myself, however I then lost
all my credit cards as well as my drivers license in Bolivia, a single stack of plastic
cards. I figured it would be hard to check out the rental without a credit card and without
my license, so I canceled the rental and got myself a car with a driver.
We left Punta Cana the day before and drove to Elias.
Here, we were greeted with
warm hospitality. He had arranged a bedroom for us and in the evening, the woman
served us an evening meal. Unfortunately, Elias had a knee injury, he needed a wooden
stick for support in order to walk a few step. He informed
me that his brother, Victor would go with me to the mountain. We agreed on a
0400 start in order to return with time for the long drive back to Punta Cana.
At 0350, Victor was outside the door on his donkey.
Last evening, we had
thunder and lightning with a little rain, but now the dark sky had stars all over.
The donkey was a rather fast walker in the beginning, I had to push a little to keep
the pace. Daylight came gradually
around 0600 and I could see that the animal was
getting slower. We also had 2 dogs coming along. Victor had to jump off and walk some
sections and eventually he gave up and left the donkey with a rope to a tree. Daylight
was now good as we proceeded up among nice pine trees on easy slopes.
It became clear thata the highest point was located on a ridge that sort of came across
our direction of travel with a small valley separation. Thus, a small descent was needed
before a slightly steeper climb to reach the new ridge. A barbed wire fence showed up
in the middle of this slope. Sort of inconvenient, but easy to pass under. The trail had
been good all way, but sort of vanished in this last section of the climb.
On top of the ridge, we again had a sort of trail, it went left as it should, and
led us into some jungle bushwack. Soon thereafter, we were near the highest point.
A little looking around and
I decided that the highest area
was located near a big
tree, the summit tree.
Upon closer inspection,
Victor showed me two old nails that had been hammered
into the tree. Appearently, this was done by Adam and Bob on their ascent 20 years ago.
We walked a bit longer in order to get some kind of view,
then returned to the sunmit tree.
We had arrived at 0720, so a 3:20 ascent. We rested a bit, then started back down at 07:40.
This time Victor wanted to follow the nice trail that went down along the top of
this summit ridge. I tried to tell him that we needed to turn off to the right, but
he continued. Finally, I got him to stop. I showed him my map with the track and told him
that if he continued, he would not get back to his donkey. That argument worked and we
made a big U-turn back to our route of ascent.
The descent was indeed very nice.
Good to see all the landscape
I had passed through in
the dark. Despite the loss of time involving our "U-turn", we were still back down at the
house where Elias was waiting, in 2:50, overall hiking time 6:10 hours.
