May 14, 2012
A grey New England spring morning that anticipates afternoon rain. Wildflowers bud and flower, pastures green. My thoughts return to a Costa Rican cloud forest bushwhack.
March 12, 2012
It’s been fifteen years since I last walked this high and wild tropical river. It is one those special places that because it is difficult to get to and there is no trail here only a few travel here, infrequently. River walking is an old pastime of mine. As a child in New Hampshire’s White Mountains rivers were our playgrounds, filled with boulders to climb and pools to dip in. Rock hopping was a favorite game, racing up or down the river, jumping from rock to rock. I used to revel in running up rivers as fast I could. Somehow it felt like flying more than running on ground. Almost as soon as I touched one rock I was already launched to the next. It required intense concentration as one had milliseconds to determine which rock would be the next touch and launching point. Today I am carrying a heavy pack, and this along with more slippery tropical surfaces makes such hopping more perilous. New Hampshire rivers are their own trails, ways up and through the mountains. It’s the same here, perhaps more so: the high tropical forest can be so thick it is almost impossible to move through with enough speed to cover any distance, though not as impenetrable as the spruce/fir krumholtz of New England’s high peaks.
