Climbing Volcanoes

We left at 7 am to drive to the base of the volcano. With clear skies and ice pick in hand, i started the slow climb up the icy path with the guides and fellow trekkers. We climbed about 1447 meters in 4 hours slowing making our way towards the top. The icy path marked out for us was only wide enough to put one foot in front of another and as I looked behind me all I could see was the steady stream of people behind me and the clouds lingering below them. As we got closer it began to clear and I could see the top...it didn´t look so far away. Two hours later when I reached the top, my legs shaking and my arms just barely raising my ice pick to plunge it into the icy wall I used to steady myself and use for leverage, I took a deep breath and smiled proudly to myself. I didn´t have time to enjoy it much though as I was soon pulled in for a congratulations hug by one of the guides and then told to quickly pull on all my protectiver gear, ie my jacket, snow pants, gators, and gloves. Then with legs still a bit shaky I climbed up around the rocky ledge that surrounded the mouth of the volcano. Ok, so not to sound too dramatic, but well looking into the depths of that volcano looked a little like what a pit of death might look like. Steam and gases rising, and hising, a sickening dry heat that fills your mouth, nose, and and lungs. A dry void of rocks and ash, blackness that reached into infinity. It´s the kind of thing you can´t stop looking at even though you get a strange errie feeling when you do. Well as the volcano is actually still active, the sulfuric fumes are, well, posionous so we weren´t allowed to stay all that long, before packing up, catching one more glimpse of the top of the world and the mountains in all directions and then heading down the volcano...on our butts. Yes this was the fun part, sliding down well carved ice slides so to speak controlling the speed with the ice pick. The ice pick was my best friend that day. I slid down slides for probably an hour terrified that I was going to fly right off the cliff edge and laughing with sheer pleasure like a 7 year old child at the same time.