Saturday, December 4, 2010

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Volcan Acatenango

Last week my friend James Ray and his family came down to visit us and lucky for me he wanted to hike a volcano. We checked online a little and found a trail that goes to the top of the third tallest volcano in Guatemala at 12,946 feet. The trailhead is about 1 1/2 hours from my house if you leave at 4 am when there is no traffic. The trail starts at the base of the volcano at about 7,900 feet and they said it only takes 4 to 6 hours to climb to the top. We started hiking at sunrise and sure enough we made it to the top in 5 hours. At about 8,500 feet we started to see frost, and we saw patches of frost the rest of the way to the top. We had a very clear and cool mourning but by the time we got to the top it was very windy and the clouds were forming and blowing in. The volcano last erupted in 1927 and now there is just a big crater up top and the lava rock turned into sand.p 1663p 1730 p 1739 p 1752 p 1757 p 1759 p 1764 p 1767 p 1769 - Copy  p 1781 p 1785 p 1786 p 1791 p 1793 p 1794 p 1795 p 1797 p 1800 - Copy p 1801                                                                                                                                               Looking down on Volcan Aguap 1806