Adam's Peak

From Kandy we went to Delhousie, the town closest to Adam's Peak. To explain that, I'll just give you more from Wikipedia:

Adam's Peak is a 2,243 metres (7,359 ft) tall conical mountain located in central Sri Lanka. It is well-known for the Sri Pada "sacred footprint", a 1.8 m rock formation near the summit, in Buddhist tradition held to be the footprint of the Buddha, in Hindu tradition that of Shiva and in Muslim tradition that of Adam.

Adam's Peak the pointy one, off to the right

Most people who climb Adam's Peak do so as a pilgrimage. We saw so many people hiking barefoot, people lugging babies, ancient men and women slowly picking their way up the steps. Whole families hike together, everyone taking turns hauling Grandma up the hill. We hiked most of the way with a woman from Colombo, who was making the climb for a third time. We didn't know her, but met her right at the beginning of the trail. She asked if she could hike with us so she didn't have to hike alone. It ended up working out for everyone, since she was an informative guide. She told me that in the "olden days" people used to give away all their property before climbing Adam's Peak, knowing it'd be the last thing they'd do. That was kind of a scary thing to hear at the beginning of the hike, but it turns out it wasn't so bad. The ascent, anyway, the way down was tortuous, more on that later....

This is our hiking pal. Brad is getting a blessing from the monk on the right.

We started climbing at 2 am in order to catch the sunrise at the top. It didn't matter that it was dark, the whole trail was lit and there were plenty of little shops selling tea, water and snacks along the way. There were also lots of statues and shrines, and chants piped through speakers. We had four hours to make it to the top, so we weren't in much of a hurry. We stopped a couple of times to have some tea and chat with people. About halfway up, around 4 am, I met an old man who'd been climbing since 9 the night before!


For almost the whole hike, we could see the top, lit up with a misty, orange glow. So I guess I thought it'd be sort of magical up there, but I should have known that it would be absolutely packed with people, some of them sleeping, some meditating, some huddled around a fire, and then since it was morning, quite a few people were waking up and brushing their teeth.

We went to the little platform that surrounds the footprint, but no one is allowed to see the actual footprint, there's just a cloth. From there we went to watch the sunrise, but it was a cloudy morning so all we really saw was a gradual lightning of the sky. Not to say it wasn't really pretty, just different from what we were expecting.




So, like any hike, you get to the top, hang around a while and then think, I guess it's time to head back down. But unlike other hikes, the way down Adam's Peak was the worst part. I would have known this if I had read Lonely Planet before the hike, but I didn't. They say, "Most people find the way down the most difficult. All those steps (5,200) can be very hard on the knees." They WERE hard on the knees, and I was tired and my blood sugar was low, so I got pretty cranky. I kept myself going by singing a song to the tune of Help me Rhonda by the Beach Boys...help me Buddha, help, help me Buddha... It helped. Near the end it was hard just to put one foot in front of the other, but we made it.

Lonely Planet also says, "Make sure you stretch afterward or you'll be walking funny for days," but I didn't find a Lonely Planet until we got to the beach, so after the hike I just ate a bag of Cheeze-Its and fell asleep. I walked funny for days.

It was worth it.









We have lots of videos of the hike, but I can't get them uploaded from home. For one thing the electricity keeps going out (horrible, it's 100 degrees) and we're down to my old PC because the Mac crapped out. So, I'll try to get them up from school. They're good. Stay tuned.