Climbing Pacaya
Kristin’s brother Mark and I headed an hour East of Guatemala City yesterday morning to climb Volcan Pacaya, one of the more popular volcanoes in Guatemala. We went despite a recent U.S. Embassy warning against climbing Pacaya due to heavy activity. But I’ve found that the U.S. Embassy will issue a warning for American’s if they spot a gardener peeing in the road, so I wasn’t too concerned. On clear nights, even from a great distance, you can see the flash of explosions over Pacaya’s nipple-like cone, so I was more than a little tipsy with anticipation.
The road up the mountain was newly paved with a grand view of the landscape East of the city, with Volcan Agua for a backdrop. The days have been more hazy lately due mostly, I think, to the burning/clearing of vacant lots (I’m guessing here, I haven’t really confirmed this with anyone), so the view was a little obscured, but we got enough of it to shake our heads at such beauty.
A little over an hour and we pulled into the “park,” paid our 25Q apiece, and found a guide named Alturo who charged 50Q to take us up the volcano. He had a legitimate looking badge and a machete. We were set. It was his second trip of the day, and he would likely take another before supper. Since his hair was still cleanly feathered, and I could detect no wear or worry on his face—in fact, he looked spritely—I figured the hike couldn’t be that bad.
The walk to the base was a good hour uphill on a wooded trail, nothing too exciting. Alturo pointed out various trees and vegetation of note, but I understood very little. There were times it could have been Michigan woods, to be honest. The altitude is what made it a little strange, hitting us almost immediately, and forcing stops every fifteen minutes.
The base was a huge sprawling awkward plain of yellow grass and a scattering of low trees. Rising out of its center, the smoking cone of Pacaya was enough to make us shudder not only at the distance still ahead—horribly steep—but also its huge and strangely live presence, which was compounded by the noise of the explosions within. Alturo told us that Pacaya was speaking, saying, “Welcome, welcome, come to me, yes, come to me,” and laughed.
(view from the base of Volcan Pacaya)
As we came to where the trail got steepest, we could see the hardened magma from the last serious explosion (2000), which sent lava over the side and down, though heavy winds, our guide told us, helped harden things relatively quickly, leaving a strange, cracked yet amazingly smooth black surface that trailed out of our sight around the cone and further down.
(remains of the 2000 explosion)
We ascended up a trail of soft, gravely black magma we found our feet sinking into at least six inches with every step. It was slow going. The rocks were warm and smoking. Smoke was blowing up the cone and circling above. After climbing a good two hundred meters, we could no longer see the base below. To our right, literally a step away, the drop could kill a man, though the fall would be a long, long sliding and tumbling over rock.
I was struck by how similar the terrain near the top of the volcano was to Peter Jackson’s rendering of Mount Doom in the LOTR trilogy. There was something spooky about seeing nothing but white smoke over the long ledge to our right and behind us. We were over 2,500 meters according to our guide, and breathing was not easy.
Someone told me that there was a new, smaller cone inside the main cone, and it was this smaller cone that was spewing rocks. When we reached the top, I realized there were actually two smaller cones rising out of the middle, another 30 meters or so high, and they were both shooting rocks and belching their bienvenidos to us, a thundering welcome.
Like good tourists, we caught our breath and snapped our pictures. We were both half expecting a bowling ball sized rock to land at our feet if not on our heads. The guide seemed calm though, which is a tourist’s best and sometimes only solace. Still, the cone felt alive, and I can’t say I have ever felt such a thing in all my life.
The descent was all heel sliding and boyish lunges. Toward the bottom, we ran, laughing hugely at the body’s ability to negotiate all that angle and surface and speed. I was reminded of the Devil’s Logslide at Grand Marais in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where my folks would take us occasionally to descend a massive dune that was once used to roll logs to the Lake Superior shore.
(Mark booking it down)
Near the bottom, after a more rapid hike, our guide cut a stretch of vine from the trail and slipped up the bank and out of site. I caught something about watering his horse. Several minutes and a couple hundred meters later, we heard the clop of horses coming down the trail, four in all, with Alturo leading the first by his cut vine. He bid Mark hop on the first, bareback, which he did. I got my turn soon after. It was a surprising and happy finish to a long day’s climb.
At the park entrance we bought ourselves and our guide a Gallo, and took a seat. I thought about how Guatemala’s notorious attractions continue to astonish me, but more than that, and more importantly, I thought about how good it was to sit with my brother-in-law in the shade in such a wild place among strange people. The greatest surprise of the day I think was the subtle realization of how extraordinary it was to be sitting in this very place together, of all the places we might be in the world. We exchanged knowing smiles at the Lord's providence which had led us both up and down even wilder and stranger paths than the one we had just taken to bring us there.
The road up the mountain was newly paved with a grand view of the landscape East of the city, with Volcan Agua for a backdrop. The days have been more hazy lately due mostly, I think, to the burning/clearing of vacant lots (I’m guessing here, I haven’t really confirmed this with anyone), so the view was a little obscured, but we got enough of it to shake our heads at such beauty.
A little over an hour and we pulled into the “park,” paid our 25Q apiece, and found a guide named Alturo who charged 50Q to take us up the volcano. He had a legitimate looking badge and a machete. We were set. It was his second trip of the day, and he would likely take another before supper. Since his hair was still cleanly feathered, and I could detect no wear or worry on his face—in fact, he looked spritely—I figured the hike couldn’t be that bad.
The walk to the base was a good hour uphill on a wooded trail, nothing too exciting. Alturo pointed out various trees and vegetation of note, but I understood very little. There were times it could have been Michigan woods, to be honest. The altitude is what made it a little strange, hitting us almost immediately, and forcing stops every fifteen minutes.
The base was a huge sprawling awkward plain of yellow grass and a scattering of low trees. Rising out of its center, the smoking cone of Pacaya was enough to make us shudder not only at the distance still ahead—horribly steep—but also its huge and strangely live presence, which was compounded by the noise of the explosions within. Alturo told us that Pacaya was speaking, saying, “Welcome, welcome, come to me, yes, come to me,” and laughed.
(view from the base of Volcan Pacaya)
As we came to where the trail got steepest, we could see the hardened magma from the last serious explosion (2000), which sent lava over the side and down, though heavy winds, our guide told us, helped harden things relatively quickly, leaving a strange, cracked yet amazingly smooth black surface that trailed out of our sight around the cone and further down.
(remains of the 2000 explosion)
We ascended up a trail of soft, gravely black magma we found our feet sinking into at least six inches with every step. It was slow going. The rocks were warm and smoking. Smoke was blowing up the cone and circling above. After climbing a good two hundred meters, we could no longer see the base below. To our right, literally a step away, the drop could kill a man, though the fall would be a long, long sliding and tumbling over rock.
I was struck by how similar the terrain near the top of the volcano was to Peter Jackson’s rendering of Mount Doom in the LOTR trilogy. There was something spooky about seeing nothing but white smoke over the long ledge to our right and behind us. We were over 2,500 meters according to our guide, and breathing was not easy.
Someone told me that there was a new, smaller cone inside the main cone, and it was this smaller cone that was spewing rocks. When we reached the top, I realized there were actually two smaller cones rising out of the middle, another 30 meters or so high, and they were both shooting rocks and belching their bienvenidos to us, a thundering welcome.
Like good tourists, we caught our breath and snapped our pictures. We were both half expecting a bowling ball sized rock to land at our feet if not on our heads. The guide seemed calm though, which is a tourist’s best and sometimes only solace. Still, the cone felt alive, and I can’t say I have ever felt such a thing in all my life.
The descent was all heel sliding and boyish lunges. Toward the bottom, we ran, laughing hugely at the body’s ability to negotiate all that angle and surface and speed. I was reminded of the Devil’s Logslide at Grand Marais in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where my folks would take us occasionally to descend a massive dune that was once used to roll logs to the Lake Superior shore.
(Mark booking it down)
Near the bottom, after a more rapid hike, our guide cut a stretch of vine from the trail and slipped up the bank and out of site. I caught something about watering his horse. Several minutes and a couple hundred meters later, we heard the clop of horses coming down the trail, four in all, with Alturo leading the first by his cut vine. He bid Mark hop on the first, bareback, which he did. I got my turn soon after. It was a surprising and happy finish to a long day’s climb.
At the park entrance we bought ourselves and our guide a Gallo, and took a seat. I thought about how Guatemala’s notorious attractions continue to astonish me, but more than that, and more importantly, I thought about how good it was to sit with my brother-in-law in the shade in such a wild place among strange people. The greatest surprise of the day I think was the subtle realization of how extraordinary it was to be sitting in this very place together, of all the places we might be in the world. We exchanged knowing smiles at the Lord's providence which had led us both up and down even wilder and stranger paths than the one we had just taken to bring us there.
posted by Daniel Todd at 9:31 AM
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