One Week in Antigua, Pt. 2: Mount Doom

If you've been keeping up with my journey so far, you'll have already read the account of most of my time in Antigua, but Thursday and Friday 8/29-30 were special enough to warrant a whole separate story.

As previously mentioned, Antigua is surrounded on two sides by a total of three volcanoes, one of which, Volcán de Fuego, is almost constantly active. While the puffs of smoke and ash it regularly emits are often visible from the city, it's possible to see the eruptions up close by climbing neighboring Acatenango. So, with little else to do, I booked an overnight backpacking tour with Ox Expeditions, one of the more highly rated tour companies in Antigua. 

The group of six others and two guides that I'd be making the climb with gathered at 7:00 on Thursday to pack up our food, water, and parts of the camping gear provided by Ox. One of the upshots was that I already had my own sleeping bag and pad, both of which weighed significantly less than the provided gear, and the Mosko Moto Backcountry duffel in which I'd been keeping all my clothes on the back of the bike doubled as a decent and completely waterproof backpack. Gear-wise, I felt pretty set, with the only possible problem being my shoes; in the interest of saving weight and space on the trip, the only footwear I'd brought were my enormous, largely inflexible riding boots, and a pair of Keens, which I'd opted to wear. More on why that's an utterly horrendous idea later. 

We were dropped off around 9:30 at the foot of Acatenango, and from the very beginning, it was obvious that the mountain wasn't going to be an easy hike. The trail climbed steeply through a channel between farm fields, and the surface was loose gravel at best, slippery dirt at worst. At least we had the usual fantastic Guatemalan scenery to look back at.

As we ascended further, farmland gave way to tropical cloud forest and some relief from the sun and heat. We'd been blessed with entirely clear and gorgeous weather near the bottom, so there were no clouds to be seen in said forest, but the lush, green environment and firmer ground were more than welcome after the difficult first part. The trail wasn't getting any less steep though, and as we trudged up through the cloud forest and watched it transition to deciduous alpine forest, we collectively started wondering if we were going to see any flat ground prior to arriving at the mountain's base camp. I was having a particularly bad time with the sloping trail; my Keens had very little traction on loose ground, and the open design of the shoes was causing them to fill with rocks every time I slid backwards, necessitating several stops to empty them out or have the soles of my feet ground off. As the forest opened up, the trail finally started to flatten out, allowing us to take a bit of a breather and a look around, and what we saw was quite spectacular. There was evidence that the higher reaches of Acatenango had once been densely forested, but what had once been tall evergreen trees were now dead trunks, their leaves and branches having been blasted off by Acatenango's most recent eruption in 1972. The thinning forest also revealed an even better view of the surrounding mountains and landscape than we'd seen thus far.

We made it to base camp around 4:30 in the afternoon, and while we'd been hiking over mostly flat ground for the final hour or so, another problem revealed itself as soon as we set down at camp: strong, howling, unrelenting wind blowing across our side of the mountain and making it nearly impossible to hold onto anything that wasn't weighted down. The temperature had also dropped significantly as we ascended, and would continue to do so as the sun descended. I wasn't concerned with unpacking my things quite yet, however, as three of the other hikers and I had opted to continue onward to Volcan de Fuego itself. The volcano had been looming larger as we approached base camp, blowing out plumes of ash as we hiked towards it, but we wanted to get as close as we safely could. The hike across the ridge linking the two peaks was steep, but not overly difficult compared to what we'd just done, but the wind on the ridge was even worse; the gusts had to be close to 50 mph, and it was almost impossible to stand up straight lest the wind blow us off balance. The sight of Volcan de Fuego up close was worth it though, even if we didn't witness a significant eruption during our short time on the ridge. Up close, what looked like dull grey slopes turned out to be a palate of reddish volcanic pyroclast deposited on Fuego's slopes, and steam was visible issuing from vents near the peak. The famous Jeff Goldblum line from Jurassic Park also came to mind: "Life...uh...finds a way." Even in this desolate wind-swept, volcano-blasted landscape, small flowers were blooming all over the ridge, stubbornly attempting to claim the volcanic soil. 

Night was starting to fall as we made our way back down the ridge and across to base camp Acatenango; thankfully we'd all been advised to bring headlamps with us, which made what would otherwise have been a blind hike through sketchy terrain relatively easy. Just as we reached camp, a few of my colleagues suddenly looked up and gasped. I turned around just as the sound of an explosion hit us to see one of the most awe-inspiring sights of my 31 years; where during the day, Volcan de Fuego's eruption had looked like puffs of grey ash and ejecta, a plume of lava, flying red-hot rocks, and smoke lit orange from the crater below was blasting into the sky behind us and cascading down the slopes below. I stared slack-jawed as the orange light faded away, unable to find words in my head to encompass the display of absolute natural power I'd just witnessed. If someone had said that J.R.R. Tolkien had taken his inspiration for the setting of Mount Doom from the volcano I was watching while writing The Lord of the Rings, I'd have believed it without a second thought. 

Our guides told us that Fuego seemed to be more active at night, and the volcano was certainly doing all it could to back up that assertion; throughout our dinner of pasta and mulled wine the guides had made (including 2.5 liters of frozen spaghetti sauce that had been weighing my pack down all day), Fuego continued to erupt regularly, snapping all of our heads around every time to watch yet another explosion of lava bombs. I'd never been remotely close to an active volcano in my life, and it was bringing up flashbacks of a temporary obsession with volcanoes and geology I'd enjoyed as a young child. I'd set up my camera and tripod to try to capture some photos of the eruptions, and though I only caught a scarce few, it was worth the effort and near-frozen hands.

If you'd told me prior to leaving Nashville that I'd be spending the one-month mark from my departure camping at nearly 13,000 feet of elevation watching a volcano blowing lava into the sky, I'd probably have laughed it off, but here I was, there it was, and once again I couldn't help but marvel at my fortune in having the opportunity to witness the sight I was seeing at all. We retired to our tents, cold, weary, and sore, but with Fuego emitting loud explosions at regular intervals, sleep wasn't always easy to come by; sometime around midnight, we were all awakened by an eruption so powerful it shook the ground beneath us and echoed off the neighboring mountains. Better than being rudely awoken by the 2 A.M. emergency tones I'd grown accustomed to in my professional life, though!

We were awakened for real at 4:30 AM for the 90-minute climb to the summit of Acatenango. To say I wasn't 100% would be an understatement; my feet were still hurting thanks to hiking much of the way up with shoes full of rocks, my legs were sore, and despite having acclimated to Antigua's relatively high altitude above sea level, I was getting rapidly short of breath with even moderate exertion. Still, I hadn't come this far just to bow out just below the peak. The hike to the summit felt like a constant test of will; the closer we got, the steeper the trail became, and the deeper our feet sank into the volcanic gravel and ash. With only a few hundred meters to go, I felt like I was running out of energy entirely; I could barely lift my legs enough to put one in front of the other and I was having major trouble controlling my breathing enough to not hyperventilate. Just as I was wondering if I had anything left in the tank, the trail abruptly flattened out and our guide called to me to look up.

We had made it.

The shallow, dormant crater of Acatenango lay in front of our feet, while behind us, lit by the rising sun, the valley in which Antigua lay unfolded 13,045 feet below, Volcan de Agua in the background and Lake Atitlan barely visible in the distance on the opposite side of Acatenango. Volcan de Fuego lay just to the side, surprisingly quiet after the furious eruptions during the night. It was the first time I'd ever stood at the summit of an actual mountain, and I was starting to understand why people pushed themselves to the absolute limit in the pursuit of other mountains. 

We still had to get down, though; the deep, loose gravel we'd slogged through to get to the summit made it almost impossible to walk steadily, so following our guide's lead, we half-ran, half-slid down in a way that almost resembled skiing. After slipping and sliding up the mountain with my complete lack of traction, I found it a welcome, entertaining relief. The rest of the descent wasn't so great, however; once our packs were loaded back up, I found myself at a disadvantage to my peers; they would be leaving the sleeping bags and camping gear we'd brought up the mountain for the next group of hikiers, while I had to take all of mine back down with me. As if it sensed our departure, Volcán de Fuego gave us one final, spectacular burst as we prepared to leave from base camp.

As we descended back into the cloud forest and retraced the steep, winding trails, I also made the unpleasant discovery that my Keens had even less grip going down than they had coming up; where I'd slipped and recovered the previous day, I now found myself unceremoniously falling all over the place. The only way I could avoid doing so was to take the slopes at a run, hoping that the next turn in the trail would arrest my momentum. It helped me stay upright, but did nothing for the constant stream of rocks entering my shoes and abrading my feet, necessitating even more frequent stops to empty them out. By the time we made it to the final stretch through the farmlands, I was outright miserable; I'd scraped both arms, badly scraped and twisted my left ankle, my feet were blistered and painful, and my leg muscles were practically screaming at me to find flat ground. I was tired, angry, and in my adrenaline-addled state, was regretting having ever even thought about making the climb; I wanted nothing more than to be as far away from Acatenango as possible, and once I reached our van at the bottom, could scarcely do more than mumble congratulations to the rest of my group for having completed the hike and collapse into a seat.

By the time we returned to Antigua and I was able to drop my things back at Mototours and shower off, I'd calmed down enough to admit that even if the last hour and a half had been pure hell, I'd just had one of the most incredible and unique experiences of my entire life. Over dinner with a couple of my fellow hikers that night, we reflected on how amazing it had been and how, although we were all beaten down and sore, those of us who hadn't previously summited a mountain weren't ruling out the possibility of doing so again...just not quite yet.

For my part, I was reflecting on a famous quote by one of my personal heroes, the late Brazilian F1 champion Ayrton Senna:

"On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high."

I had found what I thought was my limit; I'd touched it, told myself I couldn't go beyond it, and then I'd done so anyway. In a way, it felt like a metaphor for the entire trip; every mile I'd ridden other than my short time in Mexico City was somewhere new, somewhere further than I'd ever gone on a motorcycle before. Sure, there had been times where I wondered if I could or should keep going, but curiosity, determination, and trust in myself and my motorcycle had pushed me through. My circumstance was one of perpetually testing the limit, and I was beginning to embrace it in a way I never thought I would. And it only took 13,045 feet of volcano for me to really do so.