At the beginning of December we went on our greatest adventure yet as a company: El Nevado del Ruíz. Of course, we saw way more than just the incredible, snow-capped volcano.
We climbed the Nevado to 5000 meters and, short of breath and light-headed, made our way back to 4200 meters, where we spent the night camping.
We climbed the Nevado to 5000 meters and, short of breath and light-headed, made our way back to 4200 meters, where we spent the night camping.
El Nevado del Ruíz is an Andean volcano that lies within the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area where the Earth’s crust is particularly unstable, resulting in a significant amount of volcanic activity in the region. It is estimated that El Nevado del Ruiz has been active for 2 million years, but it’s last eruption was in 1985. The evidence of such a recent eruption surrounded us on our first and second days as we climbed to 5000 meters (over 16,000 feet).
The lava that violently ran down the mountain 23 years ago left behind bizarre rock formations and tons of volcanic ash. Consequently, the constantly changing horizon looks like something from the moon and the surface feels more like walking in flour than walking on solid ground:
And the Colombians were so excited about the snow, some of them took their clothes off and went skiing!
We trekked from our base camp for about 5 hours to El Cisne, heading toward another Nevado called El Nevado de Santa Isabel.
The most incredible aspect of this day was the change in eco-systems. We went from the seeminly dead lands of El Nevado del Ruiz to full-on Paramo, an eco-system that only exists between approximately 3000 and 5000 meters near the equator. This bizarre combination of circumstances creates flora and fauna that are literally unlike anywhere else.
Here we are yelling into the Paramo... our echos were incredible, though it´s not so obvious in the video:
At the end of the day, we received a warm welcome (literally!!) in El Cisne, where there is a heated cabin and a common room that is open for campers to warm their toes, stretch their muscles, and relax (or do yoga, as Sam & I did) until it's time to crash in the tent.
We went from El Cisne to Laguna Verde, a beautiful green lagoon that unfortunately we couldn´t see because of the thick cloud cover. Amazingly enough, that afternoon we had skies as blue as blue could be, leading to breath-taking views. Check it out:
All in all, this was an incredible adventure!
And the Colombians were so excited about the snow, some of them took their clothes off and went skiing!
We trekked from our base camp for about 5 hours to El Cisne, heading toward another Nevado called El Nevado de Santa Isabel.
The most incredible aspect of this day was the change in eco-systems. We went from the seeminly dead lands of El Nevado del Ruiz to full-on Paramo, an eco-system that only exists between approximately 3000 and 5000 meters near the equator. This bizarre combination of circumstances creates flora and fauna that are literally unlike anywhere else.
Here we are yelling into the Paramo... our echos were incredible, though it´s not so obvious in the video:
At the end of the day, we received a warm welcome (literally!!) in El Cisne, where there is a heated cabin and a common room that is open for campers to warm their toes, stretch their muscles, and relax (or do yoga, as Sam & I did) until it's time to crash in the tent.We went from El Cisne to Laguna Verde, a beautiful green lagoon that unfortunately we couldn´t see because of the thick cloud cover. Amazingly enough, that afternoon we had skies as blue as blue could be, leading to breath-taking views. Check it out:
All in all, this was an incredible adventure!
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