Volcano boarding in Nicaragua

Cerro Negro is one of the youngest volcanoes on earth, born in 1850, last erupted around twenty years before I got there, and still very much active. You climb it on foot with a wooden board strapped to your back, the black ash warm in patches under your hands, and at the top there is nothing but ash, sky, and a steep line dropping away beneath your feet. Then you sit on the board and go down.

I watched the people ahead of me go first, and they were slow. Cautious. Braking the whole way with their heels dug in. From the top it looked almost hard to build any speed at all. So when my turn came, I had an idea: no braking.

I lifted my feet clear of the ash and let it run. The speed came fast, much faster than it had looked from above, and by the time some sensible part of my brain suggested slowing down, it was far too late to get my legs back into the ash without throwing myself off. So I held on, and the volcano fired its loose rock straight at my face the whole way down.

It ended the way these things tend to. Near the bottom I lost the board, came off, and rolled across the ash several times before I stopped. Bruises, a few cuts, a board somewhere up the slope behind me. Entirely worth it.

The local line is that they can predict Cerro Negro's next eruption, but only about five minutes ahead. Sitting on top of it with a plank, that felt about right. It is still one of the purest hits of adrenaline I have ever had.