The tallest point in Cental America

Trip Start Sep 10, 2006
1
15
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Trip End ??? ??, 2007


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Flag of Guatemala  ,
Monday, October 16, 2006

Well the early start was not all that bad. We got the rest of the food for the hike and jumped in the back of a pickup truck for a ride to the bus terminal. Here our backpacks were thrown up on top of the chicken bus and we hopped on. Even this early, the bus was packed and as usual it was a crazy ride. We had breakfast at a comedor (the best of our trip so far) and hopped on another bus to the trailhead. The hike was not too bad especially at the pace we hiked. 45 minutes walk, half hour sit, and so on. It was a beautiful hike when we were able to see anything, most of the way up there was thick fog with limited visibility. Luckily it did not rain on us. The trail started through corn and flower fields and morphed into pine forest and open alpine fields. It was really cool. The group we were hiking with was made up of some Americans, Brits, Spanish, and Italians. It was a strange group to say the least, some experienced hikers and for some this was their first. The guides were cool, but also unexperienced, although they did a great job 01 A walk in the clouds
01 A walk in the clouds
 . I, of course, out-aged them all by a few years. We had lunch on the way up with some good views for a few minutes and then fog, lots of fog. We got to base camp around 4pm and set up camp, Casey and I brought our own tent which was nice, so we didnīt have to cram into one of the big ones. Base camp was at 12,500ish ft. The guides cooked a good dinner of pasta stew and Casey and I watched the group try and start a fire with soaking wet wood. It was good entertainment (they never got it started). Early to bed cause it would be another early morning start at 4am.
It was a bit chilly during the night but not all too bad, and 4am came around pretty quick. Got dressed in our warm clothes and with our headlamps we started our climb to the top of Tajumulco. 2 of the girls were having some problems with the altitude and slowed the group up a bit. The guide then split up the group so we could make it to the top for sunrise. Then he got lost. He went back down to see where he went wrong, after a bit of waiting Casey and decided to go on anyway, we found a good route up and just made it to the top for the sun to rise. The best colors were right before the sun came up and the views were amazing. We got real lucky that the fog did not roll in yet, there were low clouds all around but the major mountains and volcanos popped out of the clouds like majestic beings. It was surprisingly warm for being so high up almost 14,000 ft. We were able to look into the crater of this dormant volcano, and the views all around were stunning 02 Gostly trees
02 Gostly trees
 . We have now been on the top of the tallest point in Cetral America. Go Us!! After chillin on top for a bit we headed back down to base camp, we walked around the rim of the crater and then down. From base camp the fog had still not set in and we had some amazing views of the valley below as well as the peak. Breakfast was mosh (oatmeal)tea, coffee and Guatemalan hot cocoa. We packed up and headed down the mountain. We hiked a different way down which was nice and for a while we had views, then the fog set in. The hike down was real pretty as we descended down through the pine forest back to the corn fields. We got to the road just in time to hop on a very crowded chicken bus, and sitting 3 to a seat had a bumpy ride back to where we had lunch and changed buses for another crowded bus back to Xela.
Once back we gave back some borrowed gear and cleaned up, got some dinner and went to bed by 9pm. I was so exhausted. What a great weekend!
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Comments

annanddan
annanddan on Oct 17, 2006 at 04:37AM

annanddan
Enjoyed the narrative of your peak bagging in Guatemala. Send photos!

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