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Trails forbidden & dangerous: 1.
Feb. 8th, 2004 07:32 pmBy now i've been traveling through difficult territory for more than a month - Costa Rica and Panama, expensive countries, stiling their appearance after the US, the former overly touristed, the latter - centered around the canal and devastated (if you're pro-US, read: developed) elsewhere. That means self-catering, camping wherever possible, lots of hiking and choosing the itinerary very carefully. That also means - say, bypassing - a few laws.
The first story will be about Volcan Arenal, presently erupting volcano in CR. It is prohibited to climb, even though no sane person would attempt it anyway - while the risk is not overwhelming, the very idea of getting caught in a stream of lava and burnt alive is unpleasant enough to stop all but the most foolhardy. Well, Proxodimec is not foolhardy...
Fortunately, there is no-one to enforce the ban. So i went right there.
After having scanned the volcano from every side, i came to a conclusion: the crater is inaccessible; the N side offers the easiest/safest ascent, but the ranger station covers the best approach, and there're no views until the top; the W is where all the lava is - you can see what's coming, but won't have the time to escape if it's serious; and the E and S are overgrown, therefore, absolutely safe, but - have you ever tried to climb a steep slope through cloud forest? Nevertheless, S was my first try. I successfully ruined my pants - and legs, but those regenerate - wasted about 4 hours and got nowhere. Imagine thick jungle growing on soil made of fragile volcanic ash - you slide as you step, you grab a 5 m. tall tree for support and uproot it, getting your palm full of spines in the process... No freaking way.
Next: W. I managed to locate a trail going all the way to the base of the volcano. There was some entrance fee (private property, someone's rancho), pretty big, probably, but - how do you guard 30 or so square km of jungle and pastureland? I got in over a fence and paid nothing. The trail ended at a hidden lake - one of the most idyllic landscapes i've ever seen, if slightly disturbed by the constant thunder of eruptions from above - which at this distance sounded like a mad jet switching to hypersonic directly overhead.
From there i climbed up an old lava field; then, noting the trajectories of the falling boulders, chose a vantage point: a small ridge splitting lava flow in two. It was about half-way up; the lava at this level was already solidified, but kept rolling down as a stream of red-hot stones. I continued along the ridge until suddenly i felt awfully nervous, almost ready to panic, without any obvious reason. I halted, fighting the urge to turn and run; and as i stopped, a new volley of huge rocks, glowing bright red, bombarded the ground some 20 m above me. Another proof i'm able to sense danger better than predict it rationally.
That was enough. I didn't break into a run (it would be suicide on that scree), but did descend a bit, took a few shots and started moving back. In a couple of hours i came to face another problem (they don't teach this in the school, even though it sounds like geometry): how do you find the trailhead on a lava field in pitch-black night, given that the path is 50 cm wide, and the field - at least 1,5 km wide? I searched frantically, not the least willing to spend the night in a place too rocky to even lie down, but to no avail. Finally, giving up, i found the lowest point of the field and crashed through the surrounding jungle in perpendicular to the path (i had earlier taken the directions by compass). It worked.
I didn't make any more attempts. I was just sick and tired of the bloody mountain. And the joke is it was so cloudy most of the time that for all my efforts i actually saw less than from the road the night before!
The first story will be about Volcan Arenal, presently erupting volcano in CR. It is prohibited to climb, even though no sane person would attempt it anyway - while the risk is not overwhelming, the very idea of getting caught in a stream of lava and burnt alive is unpleasant enough to stop all but the most foolhardy. Well, Proxodimec is not foolhardy...
Fortunately, there is no-one to enforce the ban. So i went right there.
After having scanned the volcano from every side, i came to a conclusion: the crater is inaccessible; the N side offers the easiest/safest ascent, but the ranger station covers the best approach, and there're no views until the top; the W is where all the lava is - you can see what's coming, but won't have the time to escape if it's serious; and the E and S are overgrown, therefore, absolutely safe, but - have you ever tried to climb a steep slope through cloud forest? Nevertheless, S was my first try. I successfully ruined my pants - and legs, but those regenerate - wasted about 4 hours and got nowhere. Imagine thick jungle growing on soil made of fragile volcanic ash - you slide as you step, you grab a 5 m. tall tree for support and uproot it, getting your palm full of spines in the process... No freaking way.
Next: W. I managed to locate a trail going all the way to the base of the volcano. There was some entrance fee (private property, someone's rancho), pretty big, probably, but - how do you guard 30 or so square km of jungle and pastureland? I got in over a fence and paid nothing. The trail ended at a hidden lake - one of the most idyllic landscapes i've ever seen, if slightly disturbed by the constant thunder of eruptions from above - which at this distance sounded like a mad jet switching to hypersonic directly overhead.
From there i climbed up an old lava field; then, noting the trajectories of the falling boulders, chose a vantage point: a small ridge splitting lava flow in two. It was about half-way up; the lava at this level was already solidified, but kept rolling down as a stream of red-hot stones. I continued along the ridge until suddenly i felt awfully nervous, almost ready to panic, without any obvious reason. I halted, fighting the urge to turn and run; and as i stopped, a new volley of huge rocks, glowing bright red, bombarded the ground some 20 m above me. Another proof i'm able to sense danger better than predict it rationally.
That was enough. I didn't break into a run (it would be suicide on that scree), but did descend a bit, took a few shots and started moving back. In a couple of hours i came to face another problem (they don't teach this in the school, even though it sounds like geometry): how do you find the trailhead on a lava field in pitch-black night, given that the path is 50 cm wide, and the field - at least 1,5 km wide? I searched frantically, not the least willing to spend the night in a place too rocky to even lie down, but to no avail. Finally, giving up, i found the lowest point of the field and crashed through the surrounding jungle in perpendicular to the path (i had earlier taken the directions by compass). It worked.
I didn't make any more attempts. I was just sick and tired of the bloody mountain. And the joke is it was so cloudy most of the time that for all my efforts i actually saw less than from the road the night before!
