This ran in January in the Casper Star-Tribune, but I can’t find the link. So, here it is…
Participants carrying their boards line the top of Cerro Negro volcano outside of Leon, Nicaragua.
We stand at the top of the most active volcano in Central America, arms resting on two-foot-wide boards, staring over the edge.
It slopes nicely at first, like many of the white, snowy hills my dad sent me down as a kid in Wyoming. Unfortunately, midway through the nearly 2,400-foot mountain, the nice slope drops off, and ground is lost until scores of yards later when it levels into a field of boulders that looks like a graveyard.
“You should pick up some speed at first, before you hit the ledge and really take off,” Danny, our 20-something British guide tells us.
I’d been here before, three years ago, and remember it as an exciting, yet relatively safe experience. After all, no one in our group went home bloody.
My husband, Josh, wanted to try this time, and I figured since my parents were visiting for two weeks it would be an adventuresome experience I knew my dad could come out of unscathed.
Only, as I look down the hill where, in 2001, a Frenchman briefly broke a world record riding a bike, things seem different. It appears steeper, and these boards are slimmer, more sophisticated.
Last time I boarded down Cerro Negro we used wider sleds, with exposed wood underneath and a foam pad to sit on.
Danny says the sport has regressed into speed-craving insanity.
Now, the boards we hold are lined with metal and an extra piece of “go fast” Formica. The fastest recorded time on one of these is roughly 51 miles and hour. In a car that’s not so scary, on an inch-thick wooden board on black volcanic gravel only slightly more forgiving than asphalt, it’s a whole different story.
This wasn’t my plan for a safe-but-fun activity.
I quickly think of ways to get my dad off the hill without sledding down, but can’t come up with anything. I can’t believe I’ve drug him up this thing. He did crazy things as a young person, but now he should be sensible. Once you’re in your 60s you should want to sit and read and take long walks, right?
Danny tells us we’re going down the hill in pairs. Two tracks, about 20-feet apart, defined at the beginning and then washed out farther down from past boarder’s rolling.
About two-dozen of us crowd around the tracks, wondering who’s going to go first and feeling nervous as volcano boarding becomes a reality. Nearly all of us are in our 20s, with the exception of my dad and two other men a bit younger.
There’s a pause and some feet shuffling after Danny asks for volunteers. I’ll feel better about this after I watch a couple go down first, I think. I’ll talk go-slow strategy with my dad. That’ll help.
Nope. Apparently, my father’s going to be the first one down the hill, I realize as he trots his board to the start. He and a 20-something Dutch kid.
He takes off, impervious to my shouts to be careful, and I watch as he disappears over the edge, neck and neck with his racing partner. I can’t tell how fast they’re going, except the Dutch kid seemed fearless and disappointed that the speed gun wasn’t working because he wanted to beat the record.
A tiny speck at the bottom, I see my dad walking, though don’t understand why he’s so far away from his board.
Minutes later I, too, am at the bottom.
After I collect my board, and myself, and remove as much volcano gravel out of my clothes as possible, I look over and see him grinning ear to ear, blood dripping off his nose.
He fell, as did his partner. But, he got down first.
As racers pile at the bottom of the hill, some blackened and bloody, some just blackened, all stop in awe of his wounds.
One guy stops to take a picture.
“Man, that’s awesome. I was just telling someone else that I have to do this kind of stuff now, cause I don’t think I’ll be able to when I’m 40!”
My dad didn’t do it when he was 40 either; he waited until he was 61.
The comparison became a running joke, marking the age when everything ends. Though in reality I also find myself cramming in everything I can, figuring I won’t be able to do it when I’m 40, or 60.
But, after two weeks traveling through Nicaragua and Costa Rica with my parents, meeting countless other post-40 travelers, and coming in behind more than one post-60 runner in my only marathon, I realize my adventures have just begun.
If my dad can slide down the most active volcano in Central America at 61, and my mom can climb up one in her late 50s, surely I will be able to do anything I want. Though for my emotional well-being, I’d prefer if they kept the extreme sports to a minimum.
Donald Robinson after volcano boarding in Nicaragua.
