Ecg2110's Blog

Team FD Volcano Climbing Thank you!

ecg2110 — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:44:32 +0000

Thank you to everyone who has donated to helping me raise money for First Descents, an AWESOME non-profit that provides free week-long life changing experiences in outdoor adventure therapy to young adult cancer survivors and fighters. Below are some thank you photos (as promised) of various treks up the volcanoes I have climbed so far.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can click on the photos to make them bigger or view the album from my facebook profile here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.930934552532.2432684.107388&l=85b4efa1e5

Taking the kids from Las Tias Volcano Boarding! Las Tias is one of the local projects helping at-risk youth in Leon that Quetzaltrekkers supports. Thank you Susan Brennan!

Camping underneath the sinkhole on the top of El Hoyo. Thank you Chris Tortoriello!!!!

View of the Volcan Telica, a volcano that has been erupting for the past month or so! Thank you Eric Cohn!!

View into the Telica crater to check out the lava inside. Thank you Dan Whitt!!

View of Momotombo and Momotombito with Lago de Managua in the background. Thank you Shelby Leland!!!

View of the Volcan Asososca and the Laguna Asososca. Thanks Anne Kennedy!!!

Sunset behing Las Pilas, a series of 8 overlapping volcanoes. Thank you Alicia Jovais!!!

View from the top of Isla de Ometepe, an island formed out of two volcanoes, taken from the Volcan Concepcion, the second highest volcanoe in Nicaragua. Thank you O’Callahans!

Volcano Boarding down Cerro Negro. Thanks madre y padre!!!

View of the Volcan Concepcion at sunset from the Isla de Ometepe. Thanks Grandma!!!

View inside the active crater of El Pequeno Coloso. Thank you Tom and Danielle Cane!!

Pan across the Volcanoes Momotombo, Momotombito, and Asososca from the top of the El Hoyo crater ridge! Thank you Dagleys!!!!

View of the currently erupting Volcan Telica with our campsite in the foreground. Thank you Michele Boyer!

View of the Volcan Maderas from the Volcan Concepcion, the two volcanoes that form the Isla de Ometepe! Thank you Mackenzie Cane!!!

View from the top of the Telica crater right before sunrise! Thank you Rob Wu!!!

After descending from Telica (in the background) and checking out the boiling mud pits, the Hervidores de San Jacinto. Thank you Lora Stenard!!!

View from the Cristo Rey crater of people standing above El Pequeno Coloso! Thank you Caitlin!!!

I’m almost at my goal of $1,000, enough to send one camper to a First Descents camp for free next summer! To learn more or donate, visit http://teamfd.firstdescents.org/2011/fd/teamvolcano/lizgill/

Updates

ecg2110 — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:49:52 +0000

Things that have happened in Leon in the past couple weeks: Telica is continuing to erupt, Leon opened up a swanky, completely out of place sushi restaurant called Manhattan with gallo pinto sushi and ketchup dipping sauce, we got a new baby puppy named Mancho at our house, and despite the rain it is still unbelievably hot.

Our ferocious watchdog.

Our house flooding just outside my room.

I just got back from Isla de Ometepe, an island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua formed out of two volcanoes. I was only really there for two days, but I can’t wait to get back. While I was there we swam in the lake, celebrated some birthdays, hiked Volcan Concepcion even though everyone told us not to, (hard, really really hard) and visited El Zopilote, an organic farm and hostel, for awesome pizza in a pitch black complete downpour with two head lamps for our whole group (roads turning into waterfalls, river crossings, the whole deal).

Volcan Concepcion

Volcan Concepcion from the top

I also found out some very sad news this past week that has been weighing heavy on a lot of people’s hearts. Nick Raitt aka Nickname to all who knew him at First Descents, lost his fight to cancer on June 2nd at the age of 22. I was so blessed to meet Nickname at the First Descents Camp I attended in April in Moab. He completely lit up camp with his humour and light. You would have never guessed, from teaching us to rope cattle to rock climbing to working hard as a Camp Director that week, that he had so little time left here with all of us. In just a short week he had a huge impact on me, and I feel so lucky to have met him through First Descents. To learn more about his incredible and inspiring fight with cancer, and about all the work he has done for cancer and the lives he has touched, please visit his blog at nick-raitt.blogspot.com

The rainy season has started

ecg2110 — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:28:54 +0000

We got the first rain of the season a few days ago and immediately proceeded to lose power in the house for the next few hours. We took another group on the El Hoyo hike a few days later and almost immediately after setting up our tents, it started storming. We sat in our tents underneath the sinkhole watching the thunder and lightning from one of the highest peaks around. We were above the cloud lines so we had a pretty great view of the storm and there were a ton of fireflies lighting up the sky around us.

We are supposed to take a group on the full moon hike tonight up the Volcano Telica, but the volcano had other plans and it decided to start erupting yesterday. It apparently is starting to spit up ash and rocks and other stuff into the surrounding village–enough that they are considering evacuating the people around. More info here…

http://www.telesurtv.net/secciones/noticias/92927-NN/activan-plan-de-contingencia-al-oeste-de-nicaragua-tras-reactivacion-de-volcan-telica/#%C2%A0

I also got to visit Las Tias for the first time yesterday. Las Tias is one of the original local projects serving at-risk youth in Leon that Quetzaltrekkers supports. 100 percent of the proceeds from Quetzaltrekkers goes to supporting these local projects. We visited the younger group yesterday in the afternoon to start building a fence for the garden. See photos below.

Revolution Central

ecg2110 — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:28:19 +0000

Leon is a city known for being the revolutionary and artistic capital of Nicaragua. You can see this just by walking through the streets and checking out the murals all over the city. It´s importance in the revolution goes back to1956 when Rigoberto Lopez Perez, a poet and journalist from Leon, organized a plan to kill Somoza. Somoza was the dicator in power who assassinated Augusto C Sandino, the leader of a group of liberal rebels against the Conservative regime. On September 21, 1956, Lopez Perez disguised himself as a waiter to enter a party for dignitaries at the Casa de Obrero in Leon that Somoza was attending. He shot Somoza and the dictator died days later in Panama. Lopez Perez was killed and became a hero. Below are some photos of the Casa de Obrero…

Below is the plaque describing the heroism of Rigoberto Lopez Perez. At the top it reads Principio del fin de la Dictadura, or the beginning of the end of the dictatorship. Lopez Perez’s accomplishment set the stage for the fight of the Sandinistas against the Somoza regime.

Cerro Negro

ecg2110 — Mon, 09 May 2011 23:40:55 +0000

I led my first solo tour down Cerro Negro the other day with a group of people from Germany, Holland, and the states who wanted to go Volcano Boarding. To do the Cerro Negro hike Victor comes and picksto pick us up from the office and we hop in the back of his truck to head to the bottom of Cerro Negro. There is a 45 minute hike up the volcano to the top, where we check out the crater, and then board down. I explained to everyone how to board down, and since everyone is usally a little scared at the top, I didn´t tell them I had never volcano boarded before until after the tour was over. You can either sit on the board like a sled so that you can brake with your feet on the way down. If you stand up it´s a little like snowboarding, but your feet have no bindings and the board is thick wood so you can´t carve to brake or slow yourself down.

Cerro Negro is the youngest volcano in Central America besides Paricutin in Mexico. It was formed in 1850 and there has been an eruption every eight years or so with the three major ones taking place in 1992, 1995, and 1998. I guess we´re due for one pretty soon! Victor was telling me that he was living in Leon during the 1992 eruption and the whole city was covered in ash and you couldn´t use the streets because volcanic stuff was knee-deep in the streets. He said for days there was ash and rocks in your hair, in your clothes, in your food, etc. As a results most of the roofs in Leon are now slanted so that ash wouldn´t collect on the roofs. In 1998 they evacuated 1200 of the 1700 locals in Leon, but Victor told me that this eruption was solamente temblar.

Above is a photo of the hike up Cerro Negro, which literally tranlates into black hill. Below is a photo of one of the craters from a Cerro Negro eruption. The craters are super hot and you can usually see fumarole smoking from parts of the crater.

Gringa Status

ecg2110 — Thu, 05 May 2011 22:52:03 +0000

After a 1:30 flight from SFO on Sunday night, I arrived in Nicaragua a few hours later on Monday morning, and upon stepping out the doors of baggage claim, was greeted by a ton of people offering rides, none of which I should have taken any from. In true gringa status, I hopped in an unmarked car from a group of guys in bright orange Taxi Oficiales shirts that they made for themselves. He let me off on the side of a road filled with people selling all sorts of things, another guy grabbed my backpack, and I was in a van with about 12 other people before I knew it headed for Leon. I got in by Monday afternoon and it is HOT here. One of the guides was sick, so I left for my first trek to El Hoyo on Tuesday morning. We took a group of seven trekkers volcano boarding on Cerro Negro, then hiked up to El Hoyo just underneath a crater/sinkhole overlooking the Lago Managua, Momotombo Volcano, and the Asososca Volcano and lagoon. It is pretty incredible that you can just hike up a volcano and board down here, then go on a hike and set up camp wherever you like–no fees, reservations, guardrails around craters, etc. We were joking that in North America there would probably be a gondola up to the top of the volano and there probably will be one here in 20 years.

I have included a few photos down below–more to come. Also, an update for my Team FD Challenge (more info below on my last post)–within a couple days here Ive already been able to climb a few volcanoes! The hills here are NO JOKE. Especially with 25 kilos on your back in 100 degree weather. Thanks to everyone that has supported me so far with donations!

http://teamfd.firstdescents.org/2011/fd/teamvolcano/lizgill/

See the orange spots? Those are our tents at the campsite overlooking the Asososco Volcano and lagoon.

Crater on El Hoyo.

Sunset from the top of El Hoyo

Countdown to Nicaragua!

ecg2110 — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 22:00:49 +0000

This “blog,” which started as a class requirement to share some of my assignments with my class while studying journalism at University of Southern California Annenberg, is undergoing a new transformation: travel blog! I’ll use it to post some of my experiences volunteering in Nicaragua with Quetzaltrekkers. The unofficial motto of the non-profit is “Hike Volcanoes. Help Street Kids.” It’s pretty simply just that. I’ll be leading clients on tours through the various volcanoes around Nicaragua, and in turn the profits go to support at-risk youth in Leon, Nicaragua.

I’m also hoping to accomplish a fundraising project of my own through my experiences in Nicaragua. I recently attended a camp with First Descents in Moab, Utah, by volunteering as a Camp Mom. It was definitely one of the best experiences of my life and I was able to see firsthand the amazing experience it provides for young adults living with cancer. First Descents was founded by professional kayaker Brad Ludden and provides free week-long kayaking, climbing, and outdoor adventure sport camps to young adults with cancer. The 70,000 or so 18-40 year olds diagnosed with cancer is an under served group of people, and this group has seen no increase in survival rates since 1975. Over the course of just one week I was able to see ten cancer survivor/fighters transform and regain senses of self they had lost since their diagnosis with cancer and realize that they were stronger than they imagined.

Since returning from camp I am inspired to join Team FD to fundraise to send a camper to camp. Please help me reach my goal of $1,ooo!Any amount, from the $5 you would spend on a latte, would be incredibly appreciated. For each pledge or donation I receive, I will climb a volcano in Nicaragua. I will send you a picture of the climb as a thank you, and with your permission, will post your photo to an album compiling the thank-you photos. You can click on the link below to donate and learn more about my fundraising team:

http://teamfd.firstdescents.org/2011/fd/teamvolcano/lizgill/

To learn more about the organization and watch a short video, click here: http://www.firstdescents.org/about/

Photo of the Day: December 3, 2010

ecg2110 — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 17:29:40 +0000

London telephone pole in SW London, UK.

Photo of the Day: December 2, 2010

ecg2110 — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:26:27 +0000

Produce shot in Point Reyes grocery, California.

Photo of the Day: December 1, 2010

ecg2110 — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:24:19 +0000

Shadows on the Strand at Manhattan Beach, California.