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Chirripo National Park Facts

Chirripo National Park Facts
Chirripo National Park is a 125,650 acre park located in Costa Rica. The park was established in 1975, and named for the most prominent feature in its boundaries - Cerro Chirripo - Costa Rica's tallest mountain. Chirripo National Park contains portions of three Costa Rican provinces, including Cartago, Limon, and San Jose. Chirripo National Park is one of the country's more wild national parks, but is fairly easy to access on foot. One of the unique features of Chirripo National Park is that it encompasses five ecosystems, which is more than is found in most countries in the world.
Interesting Chirripo National Park Facts:
Chirripo National Park is named after Cerro Chirripo - the tallest mountain in Costa Rica and the world's 38th most prominent peak. The mountain reaches 12,530 feet in height.
The climate in Chirripo National Park is characterized mainly by two seasons. The wet season runs from May to November while the dry season runs from December to April.
The main attraction for tourists who visit Chirripo National Park is the mountain Cerro Chirripo. They visit to climb the mountain where they can see the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean from the summit.
Climbing Cerro Chirripo involves a 15km hike up a steep elevation. Climbers can sleep in mountain huts overnight but camping in tents is not allowed.
Chirripo National Park is one of Costa Rica's coldest spots and the lowest temperature on record in Costa Rica was recorded in the park. It was -9 degrees Celsius.
The five ecosystems in Chirripo National Park include subalpine wet forest, Montane wet forest, lower montane wet forest, premontane tropical wet forest, and lowland tropical wet forest.
The higher levels in the park are susceptible to forest fires during the dry season (December to April).
Toronto's York University has a research facility in Chirripo National Park called Las Numbes Centre for Neotropical Conservation and Research. This facility has an agreement with the Tropical Science Center of Costa Rica in terms of its management.
Some biologists have spent their entire careers researching in Chirripo National Park.
There have been more than 400 bird species identified in Chirripo National Park including trogons, wood creepers, long tailed hermits, brown pelicans, green herons, and various woodpeckers.
There have been more than 260 reptile and amphibian species identified in Chirripo National Park including boa constrictors, narrow-headed vine snakes, spiny green lizards, as well as various toads and various frogs.
Wildlife such as pumas, Bairds tapirs, jaguars, margays, agoutis, kinkajous, coatis, collard peccaries, pacas, armadillo, and spider monkeys can be found in Chirripo National Park.
Various butterfly and moth species can be found in Costa Rica and Chirripo National Park including the green page moth, owl butterfly, violet sabrewing, monarch butterfly, and chestnut headed oropendola.
The nearest city to Chirripo National Park is San Isidro del General.
There are natural hot springs located 15 minutes north of the San Gerardo de Rivas ranger station where visitors can pay the private land owners a few bucks to enjoy a dip in the water.


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