Into the Cloud Forest

Today we drove to Altos de Campana National Park, about an hour and a half from Gamboa. The hike was somewhat strenuous, mostly due to everything being wet and slippery. With twenty of us walking through we also churned up the mud pretty well.

The only time I've ever been surrounded by so much fog was when I climbed the Great Wall of China; it was impossible to see very far ahead, visibility was probably between 50 and 100 feet. We didn't climb the highest summit because it is covered in forest, but instead we climbed a nearby summit which is topped by rocky outcrop with an erected concrete cross.

The summit.

According to our Professor, the clouds will often clear up for a bit and there is a spectacular view, but unfortunately it remained cloudy. We ate our lunch at the top and then climbed back and around to a large specimen of the only genus of conifer native to Panama (Podocarpus).

This evening included a lecture on the diversity of tropical rainforests and a discussion of our independent projects. I'm hoping to study Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) between our three sites (wet, dry, and intermediate) and compare abundance, diversity, and size. One outstanding question remains, however, regarding the feasibility of my project: how many will I be able to find/catch? We're doing pilot studies tomorrow, so I guess I'll find out. Finger's crossed.