Volcano Boarding

December 14^th, 2014

While researching about travel in Nicaragua I stumbled across a few blogs that mentioned an insane sounding activity…volcano boarding!  It’s just like tobogganing back in Canada but substitute the snow for volcanic rock.  Sounds like a good idea doesn’t it?  Although that does mean that any kind of wipeout is seriously going to hurt as volcanic rock isn’t known for being smooth and forgiving.

Cerro Negro, a relatively young volcano (born in 1850 and it has erupted 23 times since with the last one in 1999) outside the city of Leon in north Nicaragua is the only place currently on the Earth where this slightly crazy sport occurs.  I specifically went to Leon from Guatemala just for this experience.  It was a long shuttle ride from Antigua, leaving at 2am and not arriving until 7:30pm since we had to pass through El Salvador and Honduras so there were many border stops, plus just generally slow roads but I hoped the travel would be worth it.

I signed up for the boarding tour through the hostel I was staying at, Via Via.  It was a small group, just me and two young German women with our local guide Marjorie and a driver Jorge.  Marjorie’s English was quite good as she is just finishing up a four year university degree in English.  She turned out to be quite knowledgeable about the local history, flora and fauna too.  We hopped in the back of the pickup in Leon and drove about 45 minutes out to the volcano.

That's her in the background:

The park entrance building:

Where they breed some iguanas:

Ready to go:

The hike up the 700+ meter high volcano was surprisingly easy, even having to carry up our wooden sleds and a small backpack with our protective gear.  The view from the top was super and there was definitely some thermal activity on the mountain as you could kick back some gravel and feel the heat in the rocks.  Marjorie mentioned that she had once cooked as egg by burying it in some tinfoil, nice trick.

Starting the hike up:

A short break:

Starting to get steep:

Up the backside:

Looking towards Telica volcano which is spewing smoke:

On the spine up:

Onwards!

After a few pics Marjorie gave us a briefing on the fine art of volcano boarding, the do’s and do not’s.  We donned our lovely thick clothed overalls, gloves and lab style goggles and were set to go.  There were two tracks to choose from but Marjorie recommended the left one.  She then walked half way down the hill with our cameras and waved her hat when it was safe for each of us to go.  The German ladies headed off first and they both had a difficult time to get moving at the start but eventually they began down the steep 41 degree slope.

Marjorie's demo:

Ready to go!

Others suiting up:

We're going down there?!?

So off I went, leaning back as much as I could and keeping my feet off the ground.  I slowly gathered some speed as I passed Marjorie but at no point did I feel I was out of control although near the bottom of the hill I did need to use my hands to keep my direction straight and I did think I was going to bite it at one point…but in the end I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed with my lack of velocity.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a wicked experience and probably I just needed to do a few more runs to fine tune my technique.  I only saw two guys out of about 20 people who really got some speed, and both of them went down the right side track, perhaps that was also a factor.  I should just be happy I didn’t have a wipe out!

My run:

I had heard that the record was 91km/hr and wasn’t planning to attempt to break that but I was hoping to go fast enough for a good adrenaline buzz.  It seemed the key to speed was to lean back and keep your weight on the back of the board.  You could put your feet down to slow down or use your hands to counter steer if you found yourself veering one way or the other.

Okay, I was at least faster than this woman:

Now this guy was cookin'

Kickin' up some dust:

Ready to head back:

Volcano boarding…check!