Expedition Arenal - Costa Rica...

Arenal is one of the most active volcanos in Central America with a constant record of continuous eruptions for more than 20 years.

Franziska and I probably did every single trail around the slopes of Arenal. 

A nice trail leading to the viewing platform of the national park starts 50mts. before the entrance-gate of the "Observatory lodge". When entering from this side You safe the entry fee to the park. 

Well, - as always - we also tried to find possibilities to climb the mountain and get as close as possible to the eruptions. Our plan was to climb the south- eastern slopes starting with the "Old Lava-flow" trail from the observatory lodge and then climb up to the east crater of Arenal to view the eruptions at the west crater.

Perfect plan.... We were waiting for the right weather conditions to do this Expedition and we finally had no choice to wait any longer as we needed to put our truck into a container in Puerto Limon the next day to ship it to Ecuador. 

So we finally started our Expedition at 5pm on the 9th of June still hoping that the rain would finally stop. Unfortunately it didn't and we were sorry that we waited so long...

After about 1.5 hours (it was already dark...) we arrived at this lava flow which normally marks the end of the trail - and in our case was the actual beginning to climb up the slopes of Arenal.

The dark "flow" in the middle was the best path (River bed) up towards the higher slopes of Arenal.

At the beginning there is dense jungle and a machette would have been a great help. Well, ... I forgot mine and ended up beating the vegetation down with Franziska's walking stick... 

Sometimes we encountered  very steep (almost vertical) slopes inside this riverbed and had to climb out of it to be able to get further up....

Here's our most important GPS-Positions along the trail:

1. Start of our climb (at the end of the "Old lava trail" accessible from the Observatory Lodge in about 1.5 h):

N10.44935 W84.70383 at an Elevation of 830 Meters.

2. Climb into riverbed at:
N10.45195 W84.70407 at 961 Meters

3. Exit the riverbed at:
N10.45297 W84.70386

And then just climb up the steep boulder slopes.... to the east crater. We made it up to N10.45724 W84.70326 and finally had to give up at 3am in the midst of another rainstorm with heavy winds and visibility towards zero.

some rest and shelter in the river bed until 
430am to finally get back down with daylight....

worn down

Constant weather Changes on the mountain...

Climbing Arenal would definitely be easier during the dry season (from Dezember to February) as bad visibility and rain generally are bad visitors especially when climbing active volcanos....  ;)

 
Capuzine monkeys at the slopes of Arenal...

The night Expedition to Arenal...

Our trail started with a short break, a cool drink and a cold Sandwich at the old Lava flow (trail from Observatory Lodge):

The coordinates are: N10.44935 W84.70383

From there we hiked north and gained about 100 meters in height when we entered a steep and deep (but perfectly dshungle-less) quite stable riverbed coming down from the mountain. Our entry point tosafely climb into the bed was at: N10.45195 W84.70407, at an altitude  of 961 meters.

Climbing Arenal is truly not common but we figured out "very well possible"
if You don't mind scrambling up a steep mountain on all four limbs. Climbing an active volcano is always dangerous and for most people definitely a crazy thing to do. Well, of all the active volcanos that we climbed, Arenal currently offers to climb its east crater which (at June 2003) has no activity and gives good protection of boulder flows along the slopes on this side. Compared to Fuego de Colima (Mexico) or Fueo (Guatemala) we think Arenal is the first active volcano with pyroclastic eruptions (boulder flows) with a general possibility to quite safely access its crater. On both "Fuegos" with eruptions that can be perfectly compared with the ones at Arenal this option was definitely not given.

Boulder flows on the Western slopes of Arenal....

The biggest danger are unpredictedly bigger eruptions with boulder throws/flows which could suddenly get into Your radius. On Arenal we additionally observed constant changes in wind directions which in our opinion makes it a must to carry masks in case You get in a cloud of its deadly gases. 




From here we continuously climbed up the river bed (sometimes climbing over steeper parts (waterfalls) and getting back in until N10.45297 W84.70386 and then straight up the very steep slopes until N10.45533 W84.70362 at 1160 meters.

The sound of the Eruptions and the red colour of the clouds at Arenal's summit started to get more and more impressive. 

Well, From here it was getting steeper and harder and finally at 3am next morning we had to give up at N10.45724 W84.70326 at an Elevation of 1331, some 300 Meters below the crater rim of the east crater. Unfortunately! To observe its eruptions from the east crater would be an amazing and probably unique experience. So far we have not heard of anyone trying to get there... - which makes it even more interesting.

We didn't make it to the crater for different reasons, the main was, trying to do it at night. The mountain is very steep and falling rocks started to create boulder avalanches which started to worry us with the imagination of safely getting down again. At the same time bad weather and visibility made it very difficult to be sure to climb the east crater and not the active one....

Well, one thing is sure: We hope to be back at Arenal again!!!

...and shoot pictures like this one!   :)

Marius & Franziska