Hike between Cerro Punta and Boquete

If you do a search on this forum for "Sendora de los Quetzales" you will find lots of info on this trail. Also do a lot of inquiry into the current condition of the trail after all the heavy rains in the area.

You can get to or from Cerro Punta by bus from David but the walk up the boulder strewn road to the trailhead is a killer. I hired a local 4x4 taxi to drive us from the bus stop to the trailhead. I did the hike during torrential rains and it was slipping and sliding much of the way. The ancient, primitive stairways that were constructed down many of the steep muddy slopes were rotted and falling apart. It was often safer to skirt around them where possible. A bridge was washed out and we had to wade through hip & waist deep rushing water to cross one stream. From the Boquete side the walk out is also up another long boulder strewn road. We were lucky to have some locals in a pickup come along and drive us into town. The walk along the main road into Boquete is certainly walkable but after the trail hike my tired legs were more than a little thankful for the ride.

A lot of people apparently do this hike by leaving and returning from David. I would suggest spending a day or two in Boquete before busing back to David. You don't want to rush through Boquete.

Even in good weather it is no walk in the park! If you are competent outdoorsmen and know how to follow a trail you shouldn't need a guide however. I would bring some overnight bivy gear for the hike just in case. The Purple House Hostel in David will store your excess gear for you for like $1/day even if you don't stay there. We took just the gear we would need for the hike and our short stay in Boquete.

Oh yeah! Be sure and enjoy a meal at Amigo's Bar and Grill in Boquete (hope its still there) and say hello to the Canadian owners for me. Best fish and chips I've ever had. Tell them that Mesacrow from New Mexico sent you. They should remember the crazy night we spent there listening to my friend Tico Hendrix entertain us.

The Quetzal trail is amazing, and one of my all-time favorite "day hikes" and can be done on your own without a group or guide, but here are a couple of things to consider:

Your best chance for spotting Quetzals and other birds/wildlife is to be on the trail at dawn, which is only feasible if staying in Boquete. No later than 5:30am, catch a taxi to the Alto Chiquero Ranger Station, and you'll probably have to wake the guard. The only quetzals we saw were within the first hour.

Most information suggests it's easier to start from Cerro Punta's El Respinga ranger station because the trail is more downhill. Quite honestly, it seemed to would be about equal in either direction. Because of slippery conditions, uphill was actually easier to traverse and steepness less painful on knees!

Several people staying in Boquete tried to do this beginning from the Cerro Punta side catching the first bus out to David at 5:30am, and never even made it to the trailhead until after 9am and saw no wildlife. This also accounts for once getting off the bus in Cerro Punta, you have to take a cab to where the pavement ends, or find/negotiate extra for a jeep or 4-wheel drive to make it up the huge, rutted-hill just to reach El Respinga (and it was a killer just coming down!)

We did the trek in about 6-hours from trailhead on the Boquete side. When reaching the El Respinga station, rangers gave us phone numbers of taxi drivers to call for pick-up where the pavement ends/begins. No one ever answered, and we continued walking endlessly until hopping into back of a passing truck to Cerro Punta (which is supposedly a 3-hour walk between town and station.) By the time we got to David and caught the bus back to Boquete, the whole process was another 4-hours after finishing the 6-hour trek!

I give these details to inform and encourage (not to discourage) you for making this trek. Perhaps there's easier ways to do this on your own; I was with a Panamanian friend living in Boquete at the time. However you plan/choose to do this, it's certainly worth any effort!

Thanks for the information, that definitely clears things up to keep planning.

The hike is quite easy(but that depends on trail conditions) if you take a 4x4 to the trail head (ranger station)from Cerro Punto. When I went I was lucky on the Boquette side a family gave me a ride into Boquette in the back of a pick-up. Took me 31/2 hrs from one ranger station to next. Trail is easy to follow. Ranger (young guy) told me walks(runs ?) it in 1hr 20mins. A great place to stay is in the dorm at the Los Quetzales hotel near Cerro Punto.

¡Dang, like2travel! You must have flown and swung like Tarzan using the vines to mark a time like that! And I can't even comprehend what the ranger said!

Granted, we stopped a couple of extended periods to photograph the Quetzals, and at the pair of clearings toward the peak but otherwise kept moving at what I thought was a steady pace. Went in mid-April; conditions were damp because of the cloud forest, but we didn't have any rain or downpours. The trail was quite easy to follow, but rather strenous in some parts - especially where the steep wooden stairs were slippery or rotted-out altogether, as mesacrow indicates.

I don't discount/discredit what you say, but would hate for anyone to randomly zero-in on the "quite easy" part and perhaps find out otherwise too late. I guess this walk in the park could be just that if you're pressed for time, but much preferred the 6-hours to stop and smell the forest...among other things.

OP did not say when he planned to go. Right now, to my knowledge, you can't walk the distance. The trail was closed altogether for some time post bad flooding/storm damage in late November. We were up there just yesterday on the Boquete side and ranger told us it's now open to "the third bridge" which he calls an hour of walking (but others say more ). Don't know what they're saying on the Cerro Punta side.

I hope they use the down time on the trail to either rebuild those rotten stairs or tear them the hell out! When I did the hike in heavy rain, the stairs were more of a hazard then a help. My buddy leaned on one of the railings to be cautious on a steep downslope and it fell apart in his hand. Luckily he regained his balance before falling into an abyss along with the detached railing. The experiences reported about hiking this trail seem to vary dramatically depending on the weather conditions at the time. It is definitely not a trail to be rushed along. You would miss too much. I think it took us 5 to 6 hours between ranger stations with 1/2 hr stop for lunch and a few short rest stops. We hiked at a pretty good pace also - maybe even faster then normal since we slid down many of the slopes. We joked afterwards that it reminded us of that scene in Romancing the Stone where Michael Douglas slides down the slope to land head first between Kathleen Turner's legs!

Yes I was going at a good clip. It was 4 or 5 years ago and it sounds as though the stairs and bridges are not in very good shape now. The trail was in great shape when I went. The year before my wife and had walked about half of it from the Boq. side, so I kind of knew what I was in for. When I went I was by myself. I had spent the morning procrastinating whether or not to tackle it myself. The weather did not look that good. The only other person staying in the lodge ,a young Japanese girl, could not be talked into the hike. When I finally left the lodge it was about 11:30 so I figured I better move it! Only stopped a couple of times and did not see much for wildlife.(probably because I left so late, and was moving so fast).

everything was washed out in november..the trail is dificult! i did it last week...you need a guide and even the road up to the ranger station from boquete was badly damaged and gets a lot less traffic!