Old Town Blog

This is a big "What Up!" to all the friends of Old Town out there. Hope everyone is finding their own adventures out there. We try to get some in here in Guatemala too.

No matter what your relationship with the Old Town Outfitters Crew we're hoping to share our adventures with you, and hoping you will enjoy the trail tidbits. As outdoor specialists we pride ourselves on the time we spend exploring the hills and honing our skills. This relatively new blog is a small way we can share that enthusiasm with our extended family.

I think we've already got a fair sampling of our favorite activities. Kayaking, hiking, climbing, biking are all included in existing blog posts. Follow the link and check out our photos and video too! Don't be afraid to jump to some older posts too. There are some good bike videos from a couple months back.

Thanks all for keeping up with us and we'll see you, hopefully on the trail, again.

Slow time for Who?

With the Big Kahuna out west as it were we've been holdin' down the fort during this slow month. That's right May is slow but the trails are just starting to get good. Despite working hard to remodel our shop, we've still been getting some people out on the trail. Not to mention taking some time to enjoy the trail on our own.

Matt left the Helmet Cam in my hands so I rallied the boys the last couple weeks and managed to get some trail footage. David, star of the "Punto a Punto" video, and his wife, had a beautiful baby boy, Roderigo! Congratulations David, for making it out on one last ride before the baby arrived that is. Oh yeah, and congratulations on the birth too. We're thrilled and can't wait for Welber's new one to pop out either. That's right we're going baby crazy here too.

Anyway, this trail is a nice single-track extension of the Punto-a-Punto or Point to Point trail that we use when we ride from the Shop in Antigua to Parramos and the Las Tierras Altas route. In this ride we skip the farmlands and head straight into the motorcycle rutted trails off a high-point nearby. This is one fun ride that is probably already turning to a river with the onset of the rainy season.

Punto A Punto



On another happy occassion recently I managed to drag our mechanic Erick away from the bike stand and his studies to get in a spin. I'd never ridden with Erick and had a feeling he was a pretty solid rider. He smoked me on the climb that day and only had to help me out of one giant hole from a washout. I dove right in. I cut that part from the video though. Maybe in a later bloopers vid.

This particular ride is one of the lower variations available in what we refer to as the Cielo Grande area. There's a ton of trail up there and it is all stellar. Check it out!

Goin' Out West......

That's right, we packed up the ole truck and headed north for some riding fun of our own. After a busy season in Guatemala we decided we needed a little time out for ourselves. First stop on the tour was Charlotte, NC. home to say hey to the parental units and to load up the 25 some odd boxes of gear and bikes that littered my folks livingroom. While there we greased the local single track of the national whitewater center just outside of town. and then in a mad dash we pushed west from NC and re-grouped in the West Texas hotspot of Austin.

After a few rounds of disc golf in Austin to stretch teh legs we pushed off to test the northern Texas hidden trails of the "Capstone Canyon National park."







The remote Capstone Canyon is historically famous for saving the Southern Plains Buffalo from near extinction and is now becoming famous for its great trails and mountain biking.








After exploring the canyons of Texas we headed up and through the badlands of New Mexico to ride the mountains around Taos. Big climbs took us through Aspen forest to the top of the ridges. The climbs were tough but the downhill off the other side was well worth the trip.





We once again loaded up the ole Subbie and continued north to Durango, Co. to ride the Colorado trail. We pushed up the C.T. through the Pines to the Aspens and up to the snow line and that was the end of the line. But from 10,000 ft. it was ear to ear grin stuff, all the way back down to the parking lot.

Seeing as how the West's Mtn. Bike mecca was only 3 hours away, we once again packed up and headed further the line. We landed in Moab just in time for last callat the brew pub and to make camp at the trailhead. After a glorious night camping under a full moon we hit the slickrock trail for some classic moab fun.






If you havent ever ridden Slickrock, you definiteily need to get out there and give it a go.
25 hours straight through and we're all of a sudden back in Austin, Tx. getting ready for the trip back to guate.

Hope you have a road trip soon,
Mateo

San Andreas Downhill Run

Hey there fellers! Here's another quick video of the other days downhill run at Lake Atitlan. Hope you enjoy!
Matty

Trail of the Quetzal

Trail of the Quetzal
We just rolled back in from one of our newest trips, a 4 day walk across the Sierra de las Minas. This is a full on off the beaten track kind of trip. Not many travelers make it this far back into the Guatemalan wilds. The Sierra de Las Minas is Guatemala's most progressively protected national park. Administered by the Defensores de la naturaleza the park is Central America's crown jewel celebrating the largest intact track of pristine cloud forest in the area.
After just a few minutes on the trail leaving civilization behind you enter into a lush green world full of amazing bird and wildlife biodiversity. The walking is pretty hard going but the pay off is well worth the effort. The Sierra de Las Minas is a nature lovers ground zero.
There is no where else in Guatemala that you can walk for days on end and not see or hear another human being. We chased Tapir trails and jaguar tracks through rivers and across the lush sierra. While on the top of the ridge in the Core area or "zona nucleo" we saw 5 quetzales, and I'm not talking about the local currency. I'm talking about the elusive bird that everyone comes to Guatemala to see but never does.
This is the real deal. Come check it out. Places this amazing dont stay hidden forever. Get here and see it before the word gets out.
Get in touch with us so we can get you on the next trip.

Adios -
mateo

Bird's Eye View

So this is what its like to wake up at 13,000ft, and poke your head out of your tent on Volcan de Acatenango. You can see across the valley pacaya Volcano is smoking away, and last night we saw lava spouts shooting out from the cone. Pretty amazing to be that high up and have your very own firework show.

Acatenango is the countries 3rd largest volcano and let me tell ya, it definitely ain't for the under achievers of the world or the weak hearted. This is a full on kick ya in the arse kind of walk. Now having said that it is very worth doing. It shares a saddle with Fuego Volcano that with a bit of luck will make you shake in your britches. Its only a km or so away but it feels as if its just right there. That was the view right at sunset before all the action started.

Its about a 5 hour walk up to the top of the volcano, but luckily for us our porters carried our gear

and headed down to the "double secret" campsite nesteld in the pines. After an amazing dinner by the Old Town Crew, we settled in to watch Fuego do its thing. If you've never had the chance to see an active volcano blow its top, this should be high on that life list of thigs to do. Give us a bell at the shop or drop us a line and we'll get you out on the next Acatenango fuego doubel header.
See ya on the trail
mateo

Caving Lanquin, Guatemala

During the Semana Santa holiday, I jumped on one of our premiere trips, a caving trip to Lanquin. I wanted to learn the trip and get away from the Antigua crowds. Personally I haven’t caved since I was a kid and we visited some volcanic caves in Idaho. Let me tell you the Lanquin and Can’Ba caves north of Coban in Lanquin are a different story entirely. Humid, muddy, wet and full of bats!

For our second day of the trip we visited the Lanquin caves. In the morning Juan and I gave the rest of the group a lesson in Rappelling. This group requested the fullest caving adventure possible so we broke out the rope and harnesses. After our lesson we headed off to the Lanquin caves. The outer caverns are well traveled and well lit so we cruised past the crowded part and headed into the dark where we set up our rappelling anchors and proceeded to drop into the darkness well away from the disturbing sounds and lights of the surface world.

In the inner caves we did a fair bit of exploration and saw some things Juan had never seen before. His new extra bright light was eye opening, so to speak. After 5 hours in the dark depths we finally surfaced and made our way down to the Lanquin river to rinse off and float back to El Retiro. Natalie and Juan revisited childhood with a game of ring toss with inner-tubes in the parking lot. The local kids loved it! It was a little late, thanks to our long hours in the cave, but we floated up to El Retiro just in time to grab a warm shower before dinner and then settle in to a chair with a beer in hand.

For the third day we headed to Semuc Champey. Pretty amazing is all I have to say. One river flowing under the other seems simply uncanny, much less, to swim in one and look down at the other raging river disappearing underneath. Following our Swim we headed to the water caves called Can’ Ba. Juan calls it the Goonies Cave, because there’s a natural water slide and lots of cool features. My wife and Lauren even collected a bunch of clay to make pottery with. We’ll be seeing the results in a week or two. No photos of this cave though because we used a disposable in the water cave and didn’t get digital versions. It was however a stellar topper to the trip and we all enjoyed every minute of it. The only regret I have was getting in the car for the long ride home. I think I could spend a week or two just relaxing and floating rivers in the Lanquin area.