September 3, 2008

Conquering Celaque!

A recent 2-night trip to climb the highest point in Honduras at a little under 9,500 feet reminded why I love backpacking. The mountain, called Celaque (meaning "box of water" in the local Lencan language), is in a very dense, lush cloud forest just outside the city of Gracias in western Honduras. The mountain gets around 2,000-4000 mm of annual precipitation so we prepared accordingly with plenty of ziplocks to store dry clothes and water-proof tarps. Neither Luke nor I had gone camping/backpacking since living in Colorado so we really enjoyed it. The only thing missing was our dog Moose!!



Setting off with our friends Sara & Javi, with Celaque in the background covered in clouds


One of the many stream/river crossings


This is on our first leg of the hike (4 1/2 hours to first camp)

Our tents set up on first night (check out the awesome A-frame design with the tarp - nice work Luke & Javi!). It rained on and off the 1st night and all through the 2nd night but luckily we all managed to stay fairly dry.

This pic gives you an idea of the dense forest...trees covered with moss, vines, and ferns in the misty clouds. This pic was taken from our the second camp, about 2 hours from camp 1 and an hour and a half from the summit.

We made it! This is in the afternoon of day 2, it's a steep climb to the top from camp 2. It was chilly up there!


Looking out over the mountains and communities below from the top of Celaque.

A nice view from the top

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful view from the top! The photos were great - and the mist/fog in the trees was really neat to see. Glad you were able to do the climb. Mom/Jean

Ian Everhart said...

Did you make it to San Manuel? You probably could have stayed in my old house...