Volcan Acatenango Overnight with4X4 “Off-Roading”

Day 1
4×4 Ride and Short Hike up

We will meet you at your hotel at noon. After checking all yoru personal gear we will gead up to a private farm to drive to the Volcano.

We will leave Antigua in our 4X4 car and drive through neighboring towns, getting a glimpse of the local life outside of Antigua. After about an hour’s drive, transitioning from concrete to dirt, we will arrive at the entrance of a farm sitting at the base of Volcan Acatenango. From there we will enter the dirt farm roads, spending the next hour traversing the maze of farmland and forest as we head up some hills you will doubt we will make it up. About half-way up, we will stop at a beautiful vista overlooking Volcan Agua and the Antigua valley, where your guide will prepare a fresh picnic lunch.

While we will be offered some amazing views on our ride, the extra beauty of this alternate route is that we cut off about 3½ hours of the typical hike, leaving a far easier trip to the summit, and giving us plenty of extra time. We will leave our car at 3500 meters, cutting out 1300 meters of elevation, and take a little over an hour to get to our campsite.

Hike To Camp

After we park our car and lace up our hiking shoes, we will turn south along Acatenango’s ridge, taking a beautiful trail through temperate coniferous forest and tropical dry forest. This stormbeaten tree-line was caught in a forest fire a decade back, leaving behind many starch-white petrified trees and a unique looking forest. Our trail is very moderate, with only a handful of uphill sections, as we make our way to camp. Our hike provides views of Volcan Agua towering above the Antigua valley, and as we approach camp we will get out first views of the spectacularly active Volcan Fuego. Our campsite is perched just below tree-line, with sweeping views of the Antigua valley and Volcan Fuego. After setting up camp, hikers are free to rest, relax and enjoy their surroundings while our guide prepares a fresh camp dinner with hot drinks at 3750m. Weather providing, we will have a campfire and spend the night under the stars hoping for a high altitude firework show from Fuego.

Meals today: Dinner
Advise: get extra cloth for you to stay at the campmsite
Water: 2 lts per day
Host: Shared Cabaña

Day 2

Summiting Acatenango In the morning

After an early camp breakfast, our group embarks on an hour long ascent to the summit, across a sand and gravel scree-trail dotted with dwarf pine trees and high alpine mosses. The trail up is the steepest we will have seen, and leads to the rocky summit exposed to the gusty and cold winds which constantly pass over Acatenango’s peak.

At the summit, our group will rest and enjoy unparalleled 360-degree views of the entirety of the Guatemalan highlands – all the way to the border of Mexico. Here we will enjoy the views fromthe crater, rest, and take in all that we have seen. When we have finished, we will begin our hike back down to our car, a little over an hour long, and we will switch back to some more 4X4 adventure as we head down the steep road. We will arrive back in Antigua.

The tour will finish at your hotel

Meals today: Breakfast
Transport: Retunr to Antigua