Impressive vistas at Paos Volcano National Park

Back in 2016, I took Jen to Shenandoah National Park for her birthday. We stopped at all 70+ viewpoints on Skyline Drive, each of which was completely obscured by low clouds.

Today felt a bit like that.

Our volcano crater view was, well…less than desirable.

Yep, fully socked in, zero view to be had. To be fair, we weren’t surprised. We had decided between a very early start, which might have allowed for a viewing of the volcanic crater below before the clouds blew in, and a later, more leisurely morning that might result in us getting skunked on the view. We chose the latter, and well, we got skunked on on a view of this:

But that’s ok, because while the crater at Poas Volcano National Park is a popular photo spot in Costa Rica, we weren’t super excited to see it. After all, we’ve been to a number of volcanos and volcanic areas already. Though, this one was a bit different in that it’s far more active than any we had visited (besides Kilauea in Hawaii).

There are warning signs everywhere, including lots of maps of various evacuation routes. There’s also a gas monitoring station right at the viewpoint on the crater rim, which helps govern when the viewpoint is open to the public. And all along the viewpoint are little yellow circles pointing out damage from rocks ejected from the crater below.

Anticipating that we’d miss out on a clear view from the rim, we had planned to hike through the cloud forest to an alternative viewpoint of a dormant crater on the other side of the mountain that is less likely to be covered by clouds. That’d be enough for us, giving us a nice view after a leisurely stroll through the jungle.

So we started off on the hike. While the path was paved and generally pleasant, it was much steeper than we had been led to believe—and boy did we notice that fact.

It didn’t help that we were both carrying heavy backpacks and both of our big cameras. Because petty theft, especially of rental cars, is such a big problem here in Costa Rica, we had to carry our most important belongings with us (medications, laptops, passports, etc) along with whatever else we’d need if our luggage was stolen from the car, weighing us down. All at elevation of 8,500 feet.

So we stopped routinely to look for wildlife, catch our breath, and take an occasional photo along the trail.

We eventually made it to the alternative viewpoint of the dormant crater and its lake. Which was, as I’m sure you’ve already gathered, also socked in by clouds.

Oh well, so it goes. At least it was all downhill back to the car.

-S🇨🇷