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| The path up Adam's Peak |
The
idea of climbing Adam’s Peak is to hike through the early hours of the morning
and reach the summit just before sunrise.
This is the fourth time I’ve done a predawn hike so I’m familiar with
the idea but wasn’t quite prepared for what this particular day would
bring! Climbing the 5,200 steps to the
top takes between 2.5 and 4 hours, depending on how quickly you walk and how
many rest stops you make. I decided that
leaving about 3.30am would get me to the top in good time because I didn’t want
to arrive too early and stand around getting cold. I also rather like sleeping at night.
The
path is well illuminated by street lamps and tea shops that seem to stay open
all night. I passed many people along
the way and everything was going fine for the first two thirds of the way. It was then that I caught up to the mass of
people who had started earlier and progress was badly hindered. Then I literally ground to a halt behind the
massive line of people. So there we all
were – unable to move in any direction.
For some reason a trickle of people were coming down the mountain but
most were waiting in vain to ascend.
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| The painfully slow push to the top! |
Slowly
and painfully we moved forward. The idea
of getting to the top for sunrise was gone – it was now a question of whether
I’d get to the top at all! It was a
circus and I honestly couldn’t believe how many people were on that
mountain. There must have been
thousands. Shortly after daybreak I
passed a couple of tourists coming down.
They told me they were giving up and suggested I do likewise. But I’m not that easily beaten and kept going
even though the reality suggested only a slim hope of getting to the top and
down again in a reasonable time.
Fortunately
I had some luck in finding an alternative route that relatively few people were
using. It detoured around the summit and
joined with another path that also led up the peak. I could suddenly throw off the shackles and
walk at full pace again! At 7am I joined
the throngs of people at the temple on top of Adam’s Peak. It would have been an exciting feeling anyway
but after all the problems and uncertainty, being able to take in the stunning
vista was really exhilarating.
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| The perfect triangle shadow of Adam's Peak |
The
best part of the panorama was seeing the perfect triangle shadow that the
mountain throws onto hills below. As the
sun rises, this shadow retracts back towards the peak and eventually disappears
into the base. I didn’t wait for that to
happen because the sun was already starting to heat the day and I had the long
hike down to complete yet. It’s for that
reason that I didn’t join the huge line to enter the temple where people go to
worship the sacred footprint. I was
quite content with just getting to the top!
On
the way down I passed a tourist waiting in line. It was 8am and she had started walking at 1am. I estimate that from where she was it would
have taken another two hours to reach the temple. Nine hours in total! Back in my guesthouse I talked to a group of
three who had failed to make it so relatively speaking my day had gone very
well indeed. The hike down in the
morning sun passes some pretty sights that were previously obscured by the
darkness. There is an ornate stone
entrance arch, Japanese friendship pagoda, a waterfall and of course majestic
views looking back at the mountain itself.
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| Japan-Sri Lanka Friendship Stupa |
After
a refreshing shower and some breakfast, I was on a bus back to Hatton and on to
the town of Nuwara Eliya. This is a
journey where you can really appreciate that travel is slow in Sri Lanka. The jade green hill country doesn’t cease to
capture the imagination with its serene beauty.
The area overlooking the crystalline Castlereigh Reservoir is just
gorgeous. Nuwara Eliya sits at an
altitude of about 1,900 metres and it’s a spectacular climb up a winding
road past various vegetable market stalls.
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