| Summary | None |
| Owner | Eric Gilbertson |
| Creation Date | 2012-04-01 23:25:42 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Antigua and Barbuda – Mount Obama (419m)
Eric Gilbertson March 26, 2012 LINKS: Our Country High Points Page Our Adventures Page I’m here to report that anyone who *thinks* they’ve completed a full presidential traverse is most likely missing out on one critical mountain – Mount Obama. Nope, you won’t find this one on any white mountains maps – it’s actually way down in the tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, and is indeed named after President Barak Obama. I set out on March 26 to complete the final mountain of my first official presidential traverse. Matthew and I had completed four Caribbean country highpoints in the last four days, but had to part ways for this one so I could get back to Boston a little earlier. He would come back to tag Mt Obama several days later. Mount Obama presents probably the biggest logistical difficulty of all the Eastern Caribbean highpoints, not because of any technical difficulty but because of a certain barbed-wire fence surrounding the summit. The official summit is owned by a cell-phone company, which you must contact to get permission to pass by the fence. But the difficulty is getting that permission. Matthew and I had spent countless hours online researching trip reports from Mt Obama and emailing people to see how they got access to the top, but with no luck. (There were only a few people we found that had actually made it inside the fenced area). Finally, I’d had a breakthrough after contacting a tourism officer in the newly established Mt Obama National Park. She said she could arrange for the summit to be opened for us at a specific time, but we would need a guide, at a price of 100USD. “I’d rather just sneak over the fence at night than pay for a guide,” Matthew told me. I agreed and continued negotiating with the tourism lady. Finally, the very day I was planning to fly out of Boston (and be completely away from email), she agreed to have the summit gate opened for us at noon March 26 (for me) and noon March 30 (for Matthew), and we would not be required to have a guide. I quickly accepted, and hoped she would relay the message to the security people as promised. It was unclear how long the gate would be open, so I absolutely had to get there by noon to be sure. I left Barbados on the 8:20am flight Monday morning, expecting to land in Antigua at 9:45am and to have just enough time to summit by noon. However, flights aren’t always operated as by-the-book in the Caribbean as back in the US. LIAT airlines decided to add a 30-minute stop in St. Lucia to the middle of my supposedly direct flight to Antigua. I guess they had to pick up a few more passengers, though there was nothing I could do about it. I landed in Antigua at 10:15am and this time I had learned my lesson on the most efficient way to clear customs: even if you’re planning to camp out (like I was), you should always make up a legitimate address for the hotel you’re supposedly staying at on the immigration form. They’ll never actually check that you have a reservation, and this prevents any unnecessary questions from the immigration officer. I picked a legitimate hotel in Antigua (Ellen Bay in Seatons), which I had no intention of staying at, and wrote that on the immigration form. This time voila! Instead of the extra half-hour of hassle Matthew and I had gotten at the St Vincent customs for not producing a hotel address, this time I was whisked through with no questions! I immediately found the rental agency and picked up a 4-door sedan. I was almost relieved to see Antiguans drove on the left side of the road – at this point I was almost more comfortable driving on the left than on the right. I was 11am by the time I hit the road, and the chances were slim that I would make it to the summit by noon. Driving was definitely more difficult without Matthew navigating, but I managed to follow signs to St John’s, and then more signs to Bolans, which I knew was in the right direction. My trailhead was in Christian Valley, and when I saw a “Christian Valley Agriculture Center” sign just outside of Bolans I immediately pulled off. The road was dirt, but it headed in the right direction so I took it. I had to swerve around a few enormous water-filled potholes and drive over a few rough rocky sections, but by 11:45am I reached a gate with a sign reading “Mt Obama National Park.” This was the right spot! And I hadn’t even made a single wrong turn! I quickly hopped out of the car, stuffed some food and water in my pack, and took off. I passed through the gate and saw a huge rock with a “Mt Obama” plaque mounted on it. I’d seen pictures of this rock online, so knew I was definitely on the right route. The trail cut into the woods behind this sign, starting out as an old dirt road but gradually thinning into a narrow trail. The trail looked like it had been created pretty recently, and I suspect it was cut when the national park was made back in 2010. This forest was much dryer than those of the other Caribbean islands I’d hiked on, and definitely didn’t feel like a jungle. I could have been out for a hike in the hills near my house in Kentucky for all I knew. The trail followed a dry stream bed, and then started switchbacking up more steeply. Noon had come and gone, and my GPS said I was still 0.25 miles line-of-sight from the summit. I figured everyone is so relaxed in the Caribbean, these security guards will probably be late anyways, right? By 12:20pm I popped out on the access road to the top and knew I was safe: if the security guard started driving down I could just stop him. At 12:30pm I rounded the final turn in the road and saw the infamous fence with the “No Unauthorized Access” sign, and the gate was open! All the logistical planning had paid off after all! (For future reference, though, I did notice a large tree growing right next to the fence to the left of the gate that would provide very easy access over the barbed wire if one happened to find oneself locked out). There was a large building with a blue jeep parked outside, and I assumed the security guard was inside the building (I never saw anyone though). I made my way up to a rock outcrop at the official summit and propped my camera up for a picture. Unfortunately my last battery had started reading low back in St Vincent, and I decided to not take any more pictures until this summit just to be sure. Luckily the summit photo worked, as well as one juggling picture and one other scenery shot, but then the battery died. I put my GPS on the summit for 15 minutes to try to get an accurate elevation, and came back with about 1370ft. This was important, because Google Earth had indicated that an unnamed local maximum a mile south on the ridge was actually significantly taller than Mt Obama. With such uncertainty in the highest point in Antigua and Barbuda there was only one solution: climb both mountains. With this GPS measurement saved I packed up my bag and started heading toward the other peak. Matthew had marked the exact location of the summit on the GPS in case a trail didn’t actually lead there. (This was our old GPS that didn’t have any overlayed satellite images or topo maps on it, so just showed my location coordinates on a blank background). I followed the road back down to my previous trail, and then followed another trail south towards the other summit. The trail didn’t actually reach the summit, so I bushwacked up the ridge until I hit the waypoint marker. My GPS read only 1334ft here, and I couldn’t find any higher reading even after bushwacking a few hundred feet in either direction along the ridge. This was perplexing, because google maps is usually trustworthy but had definitely indicated this ridge was taller. Could it have been an issue with the GPS? I would have to wait until Matthew hiked here a few days later to confirm the elevations with our newer GPS model, but I was certain of one thing: I’d at least been to the highest point in Antigua and Barbuda, no matter which of the two points was actually taller. Satisfied with my success I hiked back down, reaching the car by 2:30pm. I still had plenty of time to burn before my flight out the next morning, so decided to drive around till dark and then find a place in the woods to sleep. I drove west through Bolans, hit the coast, drove through Falmouth and English Bay, and kept driving along the loop road not caring if I made any wrong turns, just trying to see the country. I stopped at one cool spot called “Devil’s Bridge”, with a natural rock bridge over the ocean. I eventually made it back to St John’s, and completed an entire circumnavigation of the island by 6pm. I knew the Christian Valley trailhead was in the woods, so I headed back there to sleep just as the sun was setting. This time, however, I noticed a security guard in the little building near the gate where I had parked. This presented a dilemma – I wanted to just sleep in my car (I didn’t have a bug net so couldn’t really sleep outside), but I was worried I’d get in trouble with the security guard for trespassing. I figured I had two options: either sleep in the car and hope he didn’t even notice I was still in it, or go and ask him for permission. If I just slept in the car without talking to him, I’d probably be worrying all night that someone would come knocking on the door and kick me out. But if I talked to him, there was a good chance he’d tell me I couldn’t sleep there. I debated back and forth for about half an hour, but finally decided to go talk to him. Caribbean people I’d met so far were all pretty easy-going, so maybe he’d be too? I went over and knocked on the door. “Hi, is it okay if I just sleep in the car over there tonight? I have a real early flight tomorrow so probably won’t be here very long.” I asked as politely as I could. “Oh yeah, no problem mon,” he replied in a thick Jamaican-sounding accent. “There’s another shift coming in at 10pm, but I’ll tell them you’re cool mon. Where are you from?” “Thanks! I’m from the United States, and just came down here to climb Mt Obama today,” I started. We talked for a while and he was a pretty friendly guy. He said he’d lived in New York for a few years, but had to come back to Antigua where the weather was warm and sunny all year round. I went back to the car relieved that I’d made the right decision. It’s actually not that comfortable sleeping in a small car where you can’t really extend your legs, but I managed to get a few hours of sleep. I made it back to the airport with no problem and successfully caught my flight back to the states. Five days, five countries, and five country highpoints made for a successful and action-packed break. Email me if you want my GPS track or the contact information for the Mt Obama National Park tourism person who can get you access to the fenced-in summit. Matthew later confirmed with the more-accurate GPS that Mt Obama is 1374ft tall, and the other unnamed point is only 1355ft tall. egilbert@mit.edu Visit our Country Highpoints webpage |