Central America 2008:: Aborted Santiaguito Hike

Saturday
7.19.2008

(Before you get tired of reading this entry check out the two videos in the Video Bar on the right. Santiaguito Hike 1 and 2. There are also pictures from the hike at the bottom.)

Today was the two-day overnight Santiaguito hike, a very difficult six or seven hour hike in and out. It totally kicked my butt - that´s a euphimism. I really don't know how to express how gruelling it was. There were only three of us. Mic from Austria, me, and our guide, Saul. I felt like I was in The Two Towers, romping into Mordor. First of all, Mic and I were hauling 25 pound packs and our guide was hauling an enormous, unbalanced, twice-as-heavy, makeshift pack, like some llama in the Peruvian highlands. The hike began with a steep ascent over the massive bulk of Volcan Santa Maria. She looked different now, two days after the full moon hike. About half way up, at 8,000 feet, we veered to the right and followed a cow trail around Santa Maria´s great mass.

Two and a half hours into the hike it started to rain. We had just passed El Mirado, the lookout over the crater, where clouds obscured everything, even the view of the Pacific Ocean. Our guide told us we definitely would not get to the crater and would have to sleep at plan B campsite. Within the next hour the rain was absolutely pouring. We couldn't see farther than 50 feet because we were in a cloud at about 8,000 feet.

Then we started DESCENDING down the steepest path I think is possible, literally holding on to roots, the volcanic soil crumbling beneath our feet . . . for an hour! I really didn´t like the looks of it because for every step that I hauled my butt into the forest I had to haul it out. On this descent the vegetation turned into scrubby, rooty stuff that stood just barely above our head. The roots were as thick as grass and we were moving through a tunnel of branches that groped for our packs. By now I was totally soaked and muddy and didn't care. After a gruelling, hour descent we finally made it down this ridge to a very wide and rocky trough. The water was really filling up fast and it was super slick. Mic and I stopped for fifteen minutes and held council, weighing in our minds what we should do. Saul said the campsite was still another hour straight down! We tried it for 10 minutes and got even more concerned when we were descending down this drainage trough off Volcan Santa Maria. At night it would only get colder, likely rain more, the cloud wasn't clearing, we had to climb back up this damn vertical path, a guide we passed at El Mirador had told us a storm was coming, we weren't going into the crater or even to the original campsite anyway, and all the rain on the mountain would be coming into this river bed before long. Finally we wised up and turned back; I'm glad we did. The rain came harder and the volume of water was greatly incresing down this flume. The next hour and a half was the hardest freakin hike of my life. Ascending through this otherworldly tunnel, completely soaked, hauling our packs, will get me out of purgatory. It was sooo hard. I was climbing on all fours at times and really using these roots to haul me up. At one point up this steep vertical ascent, the path had collapsed. It was an eight foot cliff we had to get up. Mic got up first and I formed a step with my hands to help hoist our short guide, Saul, up to Mic. We lifted our packs up one by one, followed by our bodies.

We finally made it up around 3:30pm. At El Mirador, the lookout, Santiaguito teased us and poked bits of her spiny, rocky neck up through the clouds. She was so close! It was then apparent that if we had ascended from that rocky river down Santa Maria, and rounded that final ridge, we would have found ourself in Santiaguito´s gray, ashy landscape. Suddenly, like a young bride disrobing on the wedding night, Santiaguito pulled back the clouds, and for twenty long minutes we beheld her smoking cone for the first time. When the eruption finally came, at that exact moment, she closed the curtain of clouds again, giving us a peak of the plume above the clouds, forcing us to listen to her rumbling, and imagine what ecstasy she shrouded at the source.

We had hiked continuously, down a very difficult path made extreme because of bad weather, for 8 hours straight. All my stuff is soaked and tomorrow I'm going to do laundry half the day. My hot shower never felt so good. Was it worth it. . . I don't know. It was certainly an adventure. And an unforgetable adventure.

-AR

The hike in pictures:

7am: Meeting at Kaqchikel Tours. The day is pregnant with promise.

The 30 minute chicken bus ride over a thousand pot holes.

Disembarking from the chicken bus to begin the ascent. Volcan Santa Maria is heavily shrouded in clouds unlike the night of the full moon hike. See that chicken bus rumbling by?

Near the beginning of the hike I got tired, so Saul stuffed me into his enormous pack along with the rest of Guatemala.
Our first stop at El Mirador during the hike in. Nothing but clouds, but at least it is dry!
At El Mirador another hiker tried to join our group without paying.

Turning off the comfy, level path, down down down through cow and horse pastures.

Beginning the step descent in rain and cloud through the mines of Moria.

Our guide, Saul, sems awfully happy despite the circumstances, and despite his heavy load. This guy is one srappy little hombre. Notice the silver star cap on his front tooth.

When we first reached the bottom of this steep descent down the ridge, there was only a trickle in the trough.

After ten difficult minutes of trying to descend down this trough we turned back. The volume of water coming off Volcan Santa Maria had incresed dramatically!

Above that little water fall we had our lunch in the down pour. And my camera fell out of level.

You can´t tell how steep it is. Here we are ascending back up this ridge for the next hour and a half.

Mic looking back at the camera.

Finally we made it back to level ground and El Mirador. You can see the final ridge down in the clouds, past that watery trough - and beyond that, our first glimpse of Santiaguito´s bulk. So near and yet so far!