Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

March 16, 2024

3197m

Xela, Guatemala

There are several names of this small P600m objective to the south of Quetzaltenango (aka. Xela). The most commonly used name is Volcán de Cerro Quemado and it is sometimes referred as the entire massif, but upon looking more closely it was apparent that the trail or the “summit” of Quemado is not the true summit of this volcano. In fact, I’m fairly certain now that “Cerro Quemado” refers to the plateau to the NE of the summit where local Mayan hikers go up there regularly to pray. The true summit of this massif is a whole different game and requires some 4th class scrambling. I found two more names – Volcán Almolonga and Cerro Candelaria. While the government topo map of Central America labelled the latter to the true summit, local bloggers seemed to prefer the former. In any case, this trip report is about the ascent of the true summit of Volcán de Cerro Quemado or Almolonga or Cerro Candelaria or whatever you want to call, and there’s no relation whatsoever to the easy and touristy NE summit. And because of that, and my lack of research the trip turned out very differently than expected. I was anticipating to see hordes of people on a Saturday but ended up having the entire mountain to myself.

Earlier in the day Kate and I had already climbed Volcán Santa María and Kate needed a break afterwards. I still had a lot of energy so why not push for a day with 2000-m ascent. The easiest P600m objective in the vicinity was “Cerro Quemado” so that’s it. I had downloaded a few sets of GPS tracks from peakbagger.com, and I directly Oswaldo to drive as high up as possible on the north slopes. With 4×4 we were able to drive all the way to “Los Vahos” but the locals living there told us there’s no access to “Cerro Quemado” from this site and to park there we would have to pay. Fine. I had two different starts according to the GPS map so we drove ~1 km down and parked at the start of a narrow-but-drivable private road. Oswaldo refused to drive me any further due to the “privado” sign, but the most we could have driven was only 400 horizontal meters anyway.

I anticipated the round trip to take 2 hours and I in fact had underestimated this objective. The plan was for Oswaldo to drop Kate off at the hotel and then come back to pick me up. I did not observe any more sign of being in a private property and in fact, I saw numerous arrows indicating I was “on route”, but a few hours later on the return I got charged by 4 aggressive dogs so this might be a private trail after all. I was completely not aware of a massive forest fire that took out most of the upper slopes about 3 weeks ago and the fire was still ongoing currently. That eventually explained why I was the only person hiking on this trail. About half way up I entered some freshly burnt forest and the ashes suggested the burning was very recent, and then I started to encounter lots of fallen bushes. The trail was entirely covered in either leaves or ashes and at times I had to literally bushwhack. I started to smell the smoke and sure enough, the fire was still going, though only in some isolated areas. I remembered that I had brought the Covid mask (mostly for the dusts) but that served excellently as a protection today. I still don’t think this was any worse than a day-hike in BC in the smoke season, but I was definitely glad to have the mask. I also needed to wear the sunglasses as otherwise my eyes would be burning. But because of the mask I had to slow down significantly as my breathing was restricted.

There’s one large area with active burning but thankfully the trail traversed away from it, as otherwise this would be it for the attempt. I surely did not appreciate the scrambling on the ash-covered rocks or the calf-deep post-holing in the ashes and I had to start probing carefully. A few spots were really bad and one particular cluster of fallen bushes required some full body wrestling. Thankfully the smoke situation improved and I eventually showed up underneath a 20-m tall cliff. I followed the trail onto a ramp and then traversed a long ways climber’s left, losing some elevation along the way. This traverse terminated at a canon-hole and the scrambling through the hole required some 4th class moves. A few logs had been preciously placed and without those logs I would need a rope to climb and descend this pitch. Even with the logs (wobbling) I had to concentrate 100%. I then traversed across the narrow summit ridge and checked out two or three high point contenders to be absolutely sure. I had to say that the scramble along with the active forest fire made this ascent more memorable and satisfying than any of the previous, taller peaks that Kate and I did. I’m always a fan of these small but difficult peaks. It had taken me 1.5 hours to make the ascent so I texted Oswaldo to wait for me patiently as it would take me at least 40 minutes to descend.

The down-climb of the crux felt easier and I was soon descending the steep, ash-covered trail. I could not keep the Covid mask together with the sunglasses as the sunglasses would fog up in no time. I still haven’t sorted out a solution in such situation where I had to wear a face-cover together with a pair of glasses. As a result my throat and my eyes took turn taking in the burn. Thankfully I was able to jog most of the way down so I was not in the questionable zone for too long. The final crux was the encounter of 4 aggressive dogs just when I was about to exit the trail onto that private road. The dogs even chased me back up the trail for about 20 m and continued barking as if they were going to bite me to death. I waited for 10 minutes and they eventually gave in. I think two kids showed up and took the dogs away, so I was released. I heard more dogs barking while walking/running back along that road and my round trip time was 2 hours 40 minutes. Oswaldo then drove me back to the hotel and I spent half an hour taking a much-needed shower, as almost every square inch of my skin had gone black. Kate had been busy shopping, doing laundry and preparing for our dinner so for once, we did not have to show up in a restaurant to pay the expensive bills.