Hiking Volcano Sierra Negra

December 29^th, 2021

I signed up for a 16 kilometre day hike up one of six volcanoes on Isabela Island.  Sierra Negra last erupted in 2018, not long ago, but it is considered fairly safe, not one to blow it’s top.  It tends to have small lava flows, if any that are visible on the surface, and may cause small tremors.

 

I was picked up by a big truck with rows of seats in the back with a wooden covered roof that chattered on our 40 minute drive up to the volcano.  The terrain morphed from an arid, barren landscape with stunted bushes and grass to lush farmland thanks to frequent mist falling from clouds at the higher altitude.  There were about 10 tourists in the back of the truck, and I looked around and did an assessment of our group, with the aspect of a 16 km hike up a volcano in mind.  Behind me were a couple of thirty-year-old Germans who looked fit.  In front of me were a few women of about the same age but then I noticed some Ecuadorians.  One man looked to be about 240 pounds and another woman looked to be in her mid-60s.  Hmm…we may be a slow group.  Then I noticed a 4-5 year old boy sleeping on his mother’s lap…oh dear.  Let’s see how this plays out.

Getting lusher as we ascended the road up the volcano.

At the entry gate, our guide gave us an overview of the hike and we set off up a dirt road.  The family with the young boy had a push stroller and the first half a kilometre was a bit bumpy.  I questioned how far they would make it but the road actually got smoother.  In the end, they didn’t complete the hike and I think that was their plan all along.

Horses were available at the beginning, if you didn't think you could walk all the way.

The guide stopped the group once in a while and explained a few things about the flora and fauna, mostly the flora as there wasn’t a whole lot of fauna apart from a few feral horses.  An interesting tidbit she told us were about the invasive guava trees.  They were introduced by humans some 100 years ago to provide fruit, but unfortunately, they just took off and have now inundated the lower half of Isabela Island.  They are so dense that the shade out a lot of the shorter native plants like ferns.  The guava fruit has hundreds of seeds and birds love the fruit, as do many other animals, and they end up distributing the seed everywhere.  The giant tortoises get hooked on the sugar in the fruit and the guide claimed that is causes the female tortoises to stop ovulating…not good.

Our guide talking about the invasive guava tree.

We stopped at a few viewpoints of the caldera (a big volcanic crater), supposedly the second largest in the World, measuring about 7 by 9 kilometres.  The clouds were spilling over the rim on the south side, where we came from which looked awesome.

The caldera.  Our trail would take is along the rim to almost the middle of the picture.

Gotta love it!

The clouds spilling over were awesome.  Like a river.

A big rift in the caldera below.

On the hike, I started chatting a couple of Swedes in their late 20s or early 30s, Johan and Michaela and later to another young woman, Jennifer from Colorado.  All very nice and interesting people which made the hike, even though it was relatively easy, much more enjoyable.  

This is what a lot of the trail looked like.

Our first view of the sea on the west side of the island.

A little after six kilometres into the walk, we reached an open hut which provided some much needed respite from the sun as we are close to the equator.  After that, the trail began to descend towards an area of volcanic rock.  There was one large tree that seemed to be out of place.  The guide stated that it was planted by whalers some 100+ years ago as a way to attract giant tortoises to that area as they liked to sleep in the shade.  Tortoises were an excellent fresh protein source for long sea faring voyages in the 1800s as they can survive with no food and water for upwards of a year!  Unfortunately, that meant that the majority of their population were wiped out.  In fact, a few of the subspecies didn’t make it such as the Pinta Island Tortoise.  Perhaps you heard about “Lonesome George”, the last remaining survivor who died in 2012.

There's the big tree that the whalers supposedly planted to lure the turtoises.

Soon we were walking on the black and rusty coloured lava rock.  The odd cactus was making a go of it on this barren landscape, pretty impressive.  We reached the final viewpoint, and it did not disappoint.  Even our guide (I forget her name) was excited and she has hiked this route almost every day for the last year!  And good for her, it sounded like this was a life changing decision to take up this job.  She was recently divorced, and it sounded like she left a toxic situation as she called her ex “el diablo”.  But she seems happy and has lost 70 pounds since she started this gig.  You go girl!  Anyways, we could see the majority of the north end of Isabela Island, Fernandina and Santiago and even some smaller islands like Rabida.

Some brittle but shiny lava rock.

Our goal is the mound above the guide's head on the right.

What a strangely form rock.

We made it to the end!

Amazing how life can spring up almost anywhere.

Many different colours, from different minerals.

After about 20 minutes, we returned to the hut for lunch and then hiked back along the same route, descending back into the clouds to the entrance point.  We were back by about 1:30 pm, having started around 8 am.  It wasn’t an overly tough hike, but my feet were definitely ready for a rest.

On the drive down, some islands in the distance.

That evening I met up with Chris Shelton, my former co-worker who I coincidentally ran into yesterday, for dinner with the group he was travelling with.  It was a nice way to end the day.

The sunset from a pub where I met up with Chris.  Some guy proposed on the beach...and she said yes.

Nice sunset.

A local Galapagos beer at dinnertime.