I toyed with idea of writing one sentence for this blog entry. It was, "Today we climbed a volcano." Enough said. But my job (as I see it) is to document our travel adventures with more than just pictures. I'm not much of a writer (insert gasp here) and I leave the creative writing to the boys in the family. I just try my best to create a record of our experiences and let our followers know where we've been even if it means subjecting you all to my overuse of commas, (and parenthesis) and the word 'amazing'.

That said, onto our adventure.

We probably got to bed around midnight the night before the climb. In addition to finding a place for dinner, we had to get groceries. Maeve and I needed to pack a lunch and plenty of water for this trip. The hostel was fairly awful. It was packed with travelers who felt the need to stay up late making all kinds of noise. Several of us had to get up early, but that didn't seem to matter. Also, our room smelled. Michael was confident that something had died under his bed.

With little sleep to be had, Maeve and I got up at about 5:30 a.m. We tried to dress quietly and had to make our sandwiches. We left on time for the agency. We packed our backpacks full of our equipment, got our last minute instructions and hopped on the van at about 7:30. I could see that Maeve was tired. It was about a half hour ride to the volcano. I encouraged her to rest, but that's hard to do with a van full of people. Of course, her bladder kicked in and she needed a bathroom as did several others. We stopped at the base of the volcano to check in with the park staff. There was a bathroom, well, more of an outhouse, but we weren't being picky. Thankfully we had tissues with us.

We drove off and I was thinking keep driving, keep driving. The longer you drive, the less I hike. We stopped at a parking lot near the ski lifts. We got our gear and instructions on how to use our picks. We were told to stay in a line and not to take pictures unless it was an authorized break. And with that, we were off.

That ski lift would have saved us a lot of walking....

The dirt and rocks quickly turned to snow. It became a bit more difficult to walk uphill. We had to kick our toes in and follow the person's steps in front of you. After about an hour, we got our first break.

The weather was perfect. We heard stories of people having to turn back or not having such great views due to clouds. We definitely did not have that problem.

Next stop...some brave souls hiking that extra bit in the distance for a different camera shot. Easy to get there, but additional hiking back.

What remains of an old ski lift that was ruined from an eruption in the '70's.

Can you hear me now? Heck of a place for our guide to make a call.

We stopped about every 45 minutes for a break. After about two hours, smaller groups would form. More advanced hikers would move faster. Our guide took great care of Maeve and I as we began to slow down.

Before we rounded this one particular corner, we had to change. My guess is we were hiking about three hours at that point. We put on our snow pants, additional coat and mittens. The wind definitely picked up once you hit that corner. We thought we were further up, but now you could truly see the peak and there was a good deal to go. One couple saw it and turned around to head back down. They weren't the first to quit.

There was one guide for about 3 to four people just for this reason. Maeve and I were definitely slowing down, but we weren't last in our group. There were additional agencies hiking with groups too and they all left at different times. Maeve was beginning to get tired and complain about her socks feeling damp. Initially, I was the tired one getting encouragement from Maeve. "You're welcome," she had said to me suggesting I thank her for this climbing opportunity. At this point, I had become the motivated one trying to encourage her to keep going.

Not too much further.....appearances can be deceiving

Well labeled helmets to identify me if I face plant

We spotted one guy just sitting down in the snow. His group had been moving too fast. We caught up to him and he joined us (this was arranged via guides and their walkee talkees). His name was Matthew (I asked before figuring out I could have just read his helmet). He was suffering from jet lag from his trip here, but he still had a very positive attitude. He knew he could only do what his body let him. He could tell Maeve was tired and he said that she should be proud of what she had accomplished.

After about four hours or so of hiking, Maeve called it quits. We probably had over an hour more to summit. She was feeling wet, tired and uncomfortable. It's difficult to keep going with the wind and discomfort. It would only get more steep and windier. Matthew was happy to join us on the descent.

So the three of us and our guide prepared to descend. This was actually the fun part. Since there is so much snow, we didn't have to hike down; we got to slide down. We had these plastic disks in our packs. We fastened them to us so they couldn't get away from us and slide down the volcano. The idea was you sat on them and off you go. Four hours up and about an hour and a half down.

While there was a good deal of snow, it was soft. So we didn't get to speed down as quickly as I would have liked. The guide started a path and we followed. There were bumps along the way and these slowed us down and even stopped us. We got the jist of it eventually and figured we went faster if we leaned back.

It wasn't one straight shot down. We'd stop in some parts and walk to the next good sliding spot. Of course, just as we are getting the hang of this we had to stop and pick up another group of people who decided they couldn't go any further. Some of them were girls from our original group. I was impressed that we had made it much further than them. So now we had to stop and sit in the snow and wait about 30 minutes for them to get their gear on. I was really frustrated by this because we were all set, but the guides would prefer a larger group to travel together. It's just safer that way.

We were off again, sledding down the volcano. Maeve and I loved it and even tried going down tandomly. Michael had also rented a GoPro camera for me. The guide used it at first to film us sliding down. Then I was able to get some footage myself.

I was so sick of snow by the time we were done sledding. We still had a fair amount to walk and you never knew how deep the snow was. I fell a few times. I was thrilled when we reached the rocky area and even more excited when we got to the van.

I think it was about 3:30 when we made it back to the agency. We ran into Michael and Liam. They were just returning from their horseback riding adventure. Maeve and I unloaded our gear and all four of us went to the rooftop of the agency where we enjoyed the view and a celebratory beverage. After all, today we climbed a volcano.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. –Benjamin Franklin