Pidurutalagala – Sri Lanka Highpoint

Pidurutalagala – 8,281ft

Matthew and Amanda, September 25, 2016
Eric, September 10, 2019 (attempt)

Eric’s trip:

Mt Pidurutalagala is a peak that is either very easy, or nearly impossible to summit, depending on the month. This is not due to extreme weather or technical difficulties, but due to red tape. The summit of the highest peak in Sri Lanka is a fenced off complex housing telecommunications and military equipment and is guarded by the Sri Lankan Army. Some months, such as this past July 2019, they allow access to the general public to go inside the summit complex to the highest point of land in the country and admire the view. Other times they allow the public up the access road, but will not allow entrance inside the fenced off area. Other times they will not even allow access past the base of the access road. 

Just this year, based on trip reports from other peakbaggers, the summit was accessible in January, then completely off limits down to the access road entrance in May, then accessible to the summit in July. I was planning to be in southeast Asia in the late summer tagging country highpoints, and wanted to make my way to Lebanon at some point to try for the Syria highpoint. The cheapest flights went through Sri Lanka, so I thought I would try for the highpoint. 

Matthew had successfully summitted Mt Pidururtalagala (PEE-doo-roo-ta-LA-ga-la) in September 2016, though it wasn’t easy. He had hired a driver to take him and Amanda up to the gate at the summit complex. The guards initially denied him permission to enter, but he waited around and eventually found a sympathetic guard to let them in. His driver Neel had been critical in helping persuade a guard to open the gate. 

I decided to go with the exact same driver, since he had a proven track record of success. Though in July I read reports on Tripadvisor of people getting inside without any problems. So I was optimistic that it might be an easy ascent. Still, I gave myself two days to summit in case I encountered unforeseen difficulties. 

I flew from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia on September 9 (after climbing Bukit Pagon, the Brunei highpoint) and landed in Colombo shortly after midnight. After lengthy questioning from the customs agent including me pulling up the SU faculty website to prove I was employed there, I finally made it through around 1am.

Matthew had advised the highest chance of success if I needed to persuade a guard to let me in to the summit area was to arrive first thing in the morning on a weekday. Accordingly, I had arrived 1am on a Tuesday and planned to stay until Thursday. 

It is possible to take a train or bus from Colombo to the base of the peak in the town of Nuwara Eliya, but those don’t run until around 6am. I could have rented a car, but I wanted to arrive first thing in the morning, by 8am, and it would be risky driving the 4-5 hours to Nuwara Eliya on zero sleep. Instead I arranged for Neel’s son to pick me up at the airport and drive me to Nuwara Eliya that night, so I could sleep in the car. He would come with a friend and they would switch off driving. 

We left the airport by 2am and I was soon asleep in the back. I had read that it was around a 5.5 hour drive, but somehow by 6am, just 4 hours later, we arrived in Nuwara Eliya. Neel’s son said the access road didn’t open until 8:30am, so he dropped me off at a hotel I’d booked and planned to go take a nap. 

At 8:30am Neel and his son met me at the hotel and we headed off to Mt Pidurutalagala. It was a short drive to town and we soon reached the gate at the entrance to the access road. A soldier talked to Neel, and Neel was very confused and frustrated. The soldier had said there was no public access allowed to the summit today, and in fact there had been no public access allowed as of the past 3 weeks. 

We turned around, but Neel had an idea. He said it was maybe 50-50 chances I could get up. We drove to an autobody shop and a guy in camoflauge handed Neel a piece of paper. Neel asked for my passport and he filled out some information, along with information from his drivers license. We then drove to a printer shop and Neel went in to fax the form to the ministry of defense in Colombo. He said they may be able to give permission. 

It would take some time for them to reply, so we drove over to a nearby hill called Single Tree Hill and I hiked up for a good view of town. Afterwards Neel called the government office, but they said the fax was too low quality to read. So we tried a different fax station, then tried calling again but they never answered their phone. It was like they didn’t want to deal with the situation. Neel kept calling to no avail. He said he would keep trying, but i might as well see some sights in the area. 

So Neel’s son and I drove around and went on a few hikes to some waterfalls. When we returned Neel said he

contacted the government office but they said they could not grant permission. I don’t completely understand why, but it sounded like the telecom company that owns equipment up there currently does not want the public up there. I’m not sure why the public was allowed just 3 weeks earlier.

Neel said there wasn’t much more we could do, and it was late in the day anyway, so they just dropped me off back at my hotel. I tried emailing the tourism police, but they just said I had to get permission from the defense ministry, which we had already tried. The hotel manager said he had a friend who was a policeman who could try to get me in the next morning at 8am, so I still held out some hope. 

However, the next morning the policeman never showed up. Neel tried talking to the police chief in Nuwara Eliya, but he wasn’t able to help. He also tried calling other government offices, to no avail. It sounded like there was no chance of bribing the army guards either, based on Neel’s experience. 

I still had most of a day left in the area, so decided to at least get to the highest point I could legally get to in Sri Lanka. I would hike the second and third tallest peaks in the country, both in Horton Plains National Park. 

Neel’s son picked me up and we drove an hour to the park entrance. He dropped me off at the trailhead for the second highest peak, Mt Kirigalpotta. The trailhead is at the visitors center and they won’t let you start hiking after 11am. It supposedly takes around 6 hours round trip, and they don’t want anyone stuck out after dark. Luckily I started at 9:45am. I was feeling pretty good so jogged much of the trail. 

Unfortunately the trail isn’t very well-maintained and sometimes disappears in the boggy meadows. But I had a trail map on my phone GPS so was able to follow it. I passed one group of ten hikers then summitted around 11am. I hustled back and reached the trailhead by noon for just over 2 hours round trip. 

This was plenty of time to drive over to the third highest point, Mt Thotupola Kanda. There was an excellent trail to the summit, and it had great views on the top of the national park and Nuwara Eliya in the valley below. I could even see Mt Pidururtalagala with the antennas sticking out in the distance. 

I got back to the car after about 45 minutes round trip, and we drove back to Nuwara Eliya by 3pm. Neel had tried a few final phone calls, but had no luck, so I reluctantly had to give up on Mt Pidururtalagala. 

I caught a 5pm bus for $4 from Nuwara Eliya to Nittambuwa then a $1 tuktuk from there to the airport. I flew out at 2am that night headed for Lebanon to try for the Syria highpoint next. 

In the future I recommend trying to secure permission in advance from the defense ministry to be guaranteed access to the summit.  

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Matthew’s Trip Report:

“The guard says that at 10:30, there will be a shift change, and the gate will open up for you then,” our driver Neel said, gesturing toward the young uniformed man with the AK-47. “Then you can go to the top.” He nodded in the direction of the top of the hill: the summit of Pidurutalagala – the highest mountain in Sri Lanka. It was tantalizingly close, only a mere 50 vertical feet or so, but between us and it was a gate and several lines of razor wire. It might well have been the most fortified and hard to get to point in the whole country.

“But why do you need to go there, isn’t this high enough?”

His question illustrated an important point that we had come to realize during our research and discussions about climbing Pidurutalagala: most people made no distinction between the true summit of the mountain (i.e., highest land you could walk to) and the conveniently accessible ground that was merely a few hundred feet below the summit. It was all “the top” to them.

Of course, being more of a purist, I considered these to be two completely different things. Either you are on the summit of the mountain (“the top”) or not. If there is higher ground you can walk to, you’re not at the top yet. Simple.

Often in highpointing and peakbagging, the final 5% of the walk to the true summit – the top – can be vastly more difficult than the other 95%. Many countries have protected military or communications installations at the summit of their highest mountain – a strategically sensible location but frequently the bane of mountaineers seeking to reach the top. Examples of such countries with difficult high point access are Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and Antigua and Barbuda, to name a few.

And of course Sri Lanka. We knew that there was an extensive complex of heavily guarded military and communications installations covering the summit. This meant that there was also a road to the top.

The information we could find online and by talking to Sri Lankans in person painted a confusing picture. Accounts spanned a wide spectrum from “sure, nowadays everyone can go to top, as long as you take a taxi,” to “nobody is allowed to go to the top,” and everything in between. And of course, we never knew what exactly people referred to when they said “the top.”

I happened upon an excellent report by highpointing colleagues Patrick Thornley and Tom Cope (link here http://peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=647762), who gave an account of their remarkably successful ascent to the true summit a few months earlier.

In their report, they indicated that officially, you could get very close to the top, but the true summit was off-limits. Nevertheless, their local guide had miraculously managed to persuade one of the guards to allow them to walk to the top. (Their guide said something to the effect of: “They’ve come all the way from America to go to the top”). In their report, they included a photo of a concrete compass rose at the summit. This would be our quarry for the trip.

Tom and Patrick’s account heartened me because it suggested that it might actually be possible for us to get to the top today. All that it would take was some persuasion and a benevolent guard.

Amanda and I had a good feeling about the guard at the gate. Unlike the previous six various guards we had talked to, who had all firmly denied our request, this man was about our age and had kind look about him. He had smiled when I first spoke to him. He lacked the gruffness and the foreboding moustache of the other guards. In short, we felt that he was going to be our best shot at getting past this final gate.

Thankfully, our driver Neel knew our definition of “the top” – we had made sure to explain this detail quite clearly to him. Also, as a seasoned tour operator, he had been to the summit area numerous times, and had even been the concrete compass rose marking the summit a few years earlier. He said that nowadays they weren’t letting people to the top, but he would try his best to help us.

Amanda and I had fortuitously and randomly met Neel a few days earlier when he gave us a ride from the Nanu Oya train station to our hotel in Nuwara Eliya – the town situated at the base of Pidurutalagala, or “Mount Pedro” for short. As we drove to town, he began talking about Mt Pedro and we immediately recognized from his familiarity with the mountain that he could very well be our ticket to the top.

Today, he had picked us up at 8:30am and, after checking in with the guard at the beginning of the road, we headed up the windy 8km toward the summit. Due to the risk of leopard attacks, it was not permitted to stop or get out of your vehicle.

After 20 minutes or so, we rounded the last corner and arrived at the second checkpoint. Here, the guard waved us through and motioned for Neel to park in the nearby lot.

There were already a few other tourist cars in the lot and at least two dozen Sri Lankan tourists milling about, snapping photos. We happily joined them, but were not rejoicing yet. Our prize – the summit – lay somewhere upwards, beyond armed guards and a tall fence topped with razor wire.

We approached the first guard and Neel did all the talking, telling him politely where we would like to go. For clarity, using my phone, I showed the guard the photo of the concrete compass rose from Tom/Patrick’s report.

“No,” he said sternly, looking at me, “not allowed.”

Dejectedly, we said thank you, sighing with dismay. We found a few other guards, repeated the request, but received the same rejection. Our hope was fading. Then, we walked around to another gate that happened to not be swarming with other tourists. It was here that we met the young friendly guard who represented last hope.

After he told us to come back at 10:30am – one hour later – we walked around and did some thinking.

“It is a difficult situation,” Neel said. “Since there are other people here, if he lets you in but not others, then others will see you and ask ‘Why didn’t you let us in? You let in Americans but not Sri Lankans?’ So you can see how it is difficult for him to let you in. What to do?”

Indeed, we recognized the conundrum. If there weren’t all of these other tourists around (who, of course, had every right to be there), then it’d be much easier for him to sneak us in.

“If you had come in the early morning on a weekday, instead of Sunday, then it would be much easier,” Neel said. (*Future climbers, take note*.) He put the odds of our success at 50 – 50.

At the appointed time of 10:30am, we rounded the corner once again and looked up towards the gate. It was open, and people were pouring in!

The friendly guard gestured for the three of us to enter and followed closely behind. His shift had apparently just ended, and another guard was taking over. We noted that the replacement guard looked considerably less benevolent and we counted ourselves very lucky. Was the gate open just for us, and these other tourists had been lucky enough to arrive at the right time? Or was this something the guard did routinely? Eager to avoid jeopardizing the delicate situation, we didn’t ask any questions as we passed through the gate.

After a short walk, we arrived triumphantly at the concrete summit marker. Mission accomplished! I let out a big sigh of relief. It was foggy, cool, and windy so there was no real view, but that was just fine with us.

Initially, the guard had told us no photos, but he relented, and even snapped a photo of the three of us. After we basked in the glory for a few minutes, the guard indicated for us to follow him to a small nearby shrine.

As we approached the shrine, I noticed a small bit of rock protruding from the grass. This looked slightly higher than the concrete summit marker, but it was hard to tell. After waiting for a few other tourists to clear out, we snapped some photos and soon headed down. We thanked the guard profusely and waved goodbye.

“You were very lucky,” Neel said as we hopped in the car. “Very, very lucky.”

Indeed, the day could have gone very differently. 20 minutes later we were back at our hotel in Nuwara Eliya. We slumped onto the big sofa and exhaled a big sigh of relief.

-MG

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Email me (matthewg [at] alum [dot] mit [dot] edu) for the contact info for our driver or for any other specifics of how we got to the top. Keep in mind that access rules are always changing and could very well be different by the time you read this. Tour operators like Neel would likely have the latest info.

 

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