It has been a really fun last couple weeks. This past Saturday myself and a friend had the opportunity to climb the tallest mountain in the country as fast as possible, the next day we had our last YL leader meeting for the year, and today we had our HS retreat. Of everything I would definitely have to say that today was the most fun of all.
Shortly after school on Friday myself and my friend Daniel left school and headed for La Cienaga, base camp for Pico Duarte. That night we ate at our local guides house and went to bed as early as possible. The next morning at 4:30 am we woke up, packed up, and headed up the mountain. Round trip the mountain is roughly 28 miles and 10,000 vertical feet, so needless to say we planned on taking a good chunk of time. Daniel didn't feel the greatest that day and let me take off on my own after 6 or so miles. I managed to make it up to the top of the mountain in right around 4 hours and 10 minutes, which was a bit faster than I expected. Overall the trip took me 7 hours and 36 minutes, which as far as we know is the fastest anyone has ever done it. It was a good day, and I barely made it past 8 pm that night before I passed out in my bed.
Today we had our end of the year HS retreat, and it was a blast. We went to local resort that was a little ways out of town, we worshiped, ate, and played the day away with the students. The highlight for myself and quite a few of the others was a game of wrestle the football away from whoever has it. This just happened spontaneously when the football ended up in the pool somehow and we started wrestling over it. Somehow this ended up turning into upwards of 15 people at a time fighting for a solitary football. I got pretty good at acquiring the football, but maintaining it was almost impossible. Sometime the best times are the least planned ones. Today was a wonderful chance to spend time with our students, just letting everything go and enjoying each others company.
All retreat pics are courtesy of our PE teacher Heather Hamby
Shortly after school on Friday myself and my friend Daniel left school and headed for La Cienaga, base camp for Pico Duarte. That night we ate at our local guides house and went to bed as early as possible. The next morning at 4:30 am we woke up, packed up, and headed up the mountain. Round trip the mountain is roughly 28 miles and 10,000 vertical feet, so needless to say we planned on taking a good chunk of time. Daniel didn't feel the greatest that day and let me take off on my own after 6 or so miles. I managed to make it up to the top of the mountain in right around 4 hours and 10 minutes, which was a bit faster than I expected. Overall the trip took me 7 hours and 36 minutes, which as far as we know is the fastest anyone has ever done it. It was a good day, and I barely made it past 8 pm that night before I passed out in my bed.
Today we had our end of the year HS retreat, and it was a blast. We went to local resort that was a little ways out of town, we worshiped, ate, and played the day away with the students. The highlight for myself and quite a few of the others was a game of wrestle the football away from whoever has it. This just happened spontaneously when the football ended up in the pool somehow and we started wrestling over it. Somehow this ended up turning into upwards of 15 people at a time fighting for a solitary football. I got pretty good at acquiring the football, but maintaining it was almost impossible. Sometime the best times are the least planned ones. Today was a wonderful chance to spend time with our students, just letting everything go and enjoying each others company.
All retreat pics are courtesy of our PE teacher Heather Hamby
Hanging out at the retreat.
When the boss lady has the ball, everyone listens, except the ornery student with the broken wrist that stole the ball seconds later.
Minutes before I was ruthlessly thrown in, luckily I had changed into shorts, but I still had the polo on.
Battle royale.
Early in the morning on Pico Duarte
Sunrises here are kind of awesome.
2 hours in, still doing good.
3 hours in and you can see the mountain haloed by a cloud in the distance.
Ta da!
What it looks like on top of the Caribbean when you are inside of a cloud.
Sign at the beginning of the journey.
7:36! Nice work David! It’s exciting/inspiring to see such a fast time – I hadn’t seen any mention of a single-day ascent until I came across your blog. My brother Eric and I are headed to DR next week to climb Pico Duarte (and Pic La Selle, Haiti). We’re trying to be the first to climb all the North American country high points (18 down, 5 to go!).
ReplyDeleteWe read online about this "you-must-hire-a-guide" nonsense. I don’t think there’s any chance of us breaking your record, but we would like to climb it quickly and not be slowed down by a guide/mules. It sounds like you were able to convince your guide to let you off the leash and do it at your own pace, which sounds awesome. We just had a couple of questions for you:
1) Do you happen to have any contact info for your guide Radamel?
2) Do you think he (or any other guides) would allow us to climb it in a similar style?
Thanks in advance for your help! Feel free to contact us offline if you like (our contact info is here: http://web.mit.edu/matthewg/Public/adventures/). Good luck on your future adventures!
Matthew & Eric Gilbertson