Do you have a place that you always wanted to go but never had the chance to? Well I had that place here on the island it’s called Pico del Este in the Caribbean National Forest better known as El Yunque. At more than 3,000 feet it’s an impressive site. Since I was a little kid I watch those radar towers wondering about them. A couple of weeks ago while searching about them I learned that they were abandon and somewhat accessible (well not really accessible one of them still working). So I decided to try to get to that famous mountaintop with the help of a couple of friends. It took about an hour and a half to get to the radar installation from the parking spot. The hike is insanely beautiful and amazing. Technically we were not supposed to go there and all the time we were expecting someone to just tell us to turn around. Well let me tell you I never expected to be there it is like a small city complete with housing facilities and all. The structure is rapidly deteriorating and at midday we couldn’t see 30 feet in front of us due to the intense fog. The real purpose for the trip was to place a Geocache for others to find but finally we decided to place it outside of the limits of the base. For more information about this cache click here. Here are some pictures of our trip to the radar site in El Yunque.
Arriving at the base entrance.
The Road leading to Pico del Este.
Entrance of the Military Installation@ El Yunque.
Old Sign
With Elias I'm the one on the left.
One of the radars
Believe me this was shot at midday.
Some info I found about Pico del Este. Pico del Este is located in the Caribbean National Forest, Naguabo, Puerto Rico. Pico del Este, one of the rainforest's peaks, houses a JSS (Joint Surveillance System) radar and communications site attached to the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base. Installations on Mt. Pico Del Este include the AN/FPS-67 and AN/SPS-48Cradarsites.
I took my Maxpedition Falcon II backpack with the Maxpedition 10”x4” Bottle holder with a full Nalgene bottle in order to test them. I carried it for more than four hours that day and let me tell you they are great the backpack felt great and the 32oz Nalgene bottle provided enough water for the entire trip. I highly recommend them.
