Pocosol Station
Quick Facts
- Location : 30 miles from San Ramon
- Altitude : 2,400 feet
- Hours : 7 a.m.-4 p.m
- Telephone : 2468-8382
- Entrance Fee : $12 adults; $8 students
The Pocosol Station attracts hikers and nature lovers to its remote and pristine forests inside Costa Rica's largest wildlife reserve – one of two places in Costa Rica where jaguars still live in the wild. Hiking among the reserve's six trails, guests encounter the rainforest's secrets: smoking, bubbling mud pits, lagoons, waterfalls, creeks, ancient, felled tree trunks overgrown with iridescent green moss and mushrooms.
read more closeSteeped on the Caribbean slopes of the Tilaran mountains, the six trails at Pocosol creep through six miles of primary and secondary premontane wet rainforest (dense, forest that grows on the sides of mountains) full with the sights and sounds birds, monkeys, peccaries and frogs. Incredibly dense, green and vivacious, the rainforest is truly awe-inspiring; resonating with a vibration of billions of organisms working in harmony.
Trails
Perhaps the most unique trail, Sendero Fumaroles, starts behind the dining hall at Pocosol and meanders up through the hills where troupes of white-faced monkeys are sometimes spotted. It's curves along the mountain slopes intersecting brooks and trudging over exposed roots. As you walk closer toward the trail's namesake, the smell of fire and brimstone fills your nostrils; sulfuric gases leaking through the ground. With no warning save the smell, the trail crosses a series of steaming mud pits, heated by an underground vein from the Arenal volcano. Inside them, water roils undulating with bubble and emanating noxious gases; a truly bizarre scene to walk across in the middle of the rainforest.
The longest trail, Sendero Quebrada, is a branch off the main trail leading to a 150-foot waterfall. After stepping off the wide, flat main trail, Sendero Quebrada falls like running waters down the side of the hills; steps of tree trunks, stone and exposed roots winding down to an observation platform; with views of the monumental falls.
For stroll through the rainforest and around a lake, follow Sendero Laguna around the nine-square-acre lagoon. Step over moss-laden bridges and small fields of ferns where the trail shrinks to a mere two-feet wide. Walk around the base and peek at the lake through gaps at the forest until you reach a split in the trail that leads to a meadow and a picnic area beside the lake's shore.