The Night on Acatenango

Valeria had been saving and training for this climb for eight months. At ten to four on a Friday morning in December, she switched on her headlamp and crawled out of the tent. The camp sat at about 3,600 meters on the side of Acatenango, and the summit was almost four hundred meters above it. Her friend Bernardo was already outside, stamping his boots against the cold. "In two hours we'll be standing on the top," she said.

Their guide, Efraín, led the group up the trail, and a younger guide, Tavo, walked at the back. The path was steep and covered in loose black ash, so for every two steps forward, they seemed to slide one step back. Across the valley, the Fuego volcano rumbled every few minutes and threw a fountain of orange sparks into the dark.

After about forty minutes, Bernardo started to fall behind. Then Valeria noticed that he was leaning on his poles after every few steps, and when she asked him something, he took a long time to answer. "My head is killing me," he said at last. "And I feel sick. I'll be fine in a minute."

Efraín shone his light on Bernardo's face and asked him to walk a few steps in a straight line. Bernardo couldn't do it. "It's altitude sickness," Efraín said quietly. "He mustn't go any higher. There's only one real cure, and that's going down. Tavo will take him back to camp, and the rest of us will carry on."

Valeria looked up. The summit was a dark shape against the stars, maybe an hour away, and she might never get this chance again. "Go," Bernardo said. "Don't be silly. I'll be asleep by the time you get back anyway." But she pictured him alone in a cold tent with his head pounding, and she shook her head. "I'm coming with you," she said. "The mountain isn't going anywhere."

Going down was much faster. With every hundred meters, Bernardo seemed to wake up a little more. By the time they reached the tents, he was complaining about the ash in his socks, which Valeria took as a very good sign. Tavo made hot chocolate on a little gas stove.

Then the ground shook softly under them. Across the valley, Fuego exploded again, and a thin river of red lava slid down its dark side. It was brighter than anything she had seen on the way up. The three of them sat without speaking as the steam from their cups rose into the cold air. Far above them, the other headlamps kept climbing toward the summit.