By Skylar Romines
Founder and Owner of ATW Advisors
Beginning last Friday, I climbed up one of the world's most active volcanoes. It is called Fuego in Guatemala. The adventure consists of a climb to base camp at ~3600m on a neighboring inactive volcano. After a couple of hours rest there, we descended back down to ~2400m then back up to ~3600m on Fuego, about 170m from the top of the volcano.
You can see the area known as the razor's edge, the flat narrow portion below the eruptions. This was the highest we climbed on Fuego. It is 1-2m wide and we were hit with a severe rain and windstorm at the top, including plenty of thunder and lightning. There were times the wind was so strong, I had to sit down for periods of time because it would have blown me right over the edge if I tried to stand.
Watching a Volcano Erupt From 170 Meters
Watching and feeling and hearing a volcanic eruption from this distance was easily one of the top 5 coolest things I've ever done. The perspective from there is crazy. We are so small. Nature is so vast. God is so powerful. Everything is energy. The booms sounded like a bomb going off. Louder than any shooting range I've ever been to. The shaking was like a mild earthquake. Our bodies were so vulnerable.
The Descent Through Volcanic Quicksand
We descended back down Fuego and back up to base at night. Despite having headlamps, visibility was very low in the storm. The ground was not solid, it was newly wet volcanic ash. Basically walking in quicksand.
My body has never felt the type of exhaustion it endured by the time we made it back to base camp. I was too hungry to eat, too thirsty to drink, too tired to sleep. It's impossible to sleep anyway with the volcano erupting every ~30 mins.
Every Problem Seemed Smaller the Next Morning
On the hike down the next morning, it sounds cheesy, but I was a different person. Any problems in life seemed so small. Challenges running a business seemed so manageable. Focusing on the meaningful things in life felt more important than ever.
I've always been the kind of person who craves some adventure to break up a relatively routine life, but things like this are bigger than that. I don't torture myself for no reason. I do it because I genuinely believe we need these kinds of challenges to see what we are capable of. I would never know how strong my body and mostly my mind were if I didn't push them to these limits.
Get Out of Your Comfort Zone This Week
I'm not advocating for everyone to go climb an active volcano, but I do believe we need to regularly get out of our comfort zones to keep growing. To stay excited about life. To take an active role in becoming the version of yourself you want to be.
I hope you'll get out there and push yourself this week. Try something new. Solve a problem. Talk to a stranger. Hit a PR. Embrace serendipity. You never know what kind of impact it will have on you and you'll in turn have on others. And if you want real community through unexpected connections, sometimes you find it on the side of a volcano with strangers who become friends.
These are not my photos. I borrowed them from someone in my group. My phone was destroyed in the storm on Friday. Navigating Guatemala for a few days and getting back to the US without a phone is a whole different kind of challenge which maybe I will share another day.
