Costa Rica Tour and Panama Cruise with CruiseWest
Poás Volcano National Park * Text and Photos by Jack Yeazel
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GENERAL:
Few volcanoes allow you to drive all the way to the rim.  Poás does—well, at least to within 1,000 feet, where a short stroll puts you at the very edge of one of the world's largest active craters (one mile wide).  The viewing terrace gives a bird’s-eye view not only 1,060 feet down into the bowels of the volcano, with its greenish sulfuric pool, but also down over the northern lowlands.

Poás at (8,442 feet maximum elevation) is a restless giant with a 40-year active cycle.  It erupted moderately in the early 1950s and has been intermittently active ever since.  The park is frequently closed to visitors because of sulfur gas emissions. Over the millennia it has vented its anger through three craters. Two now slumber under a blanket of vegetation, but the main crater bubbles persistently with active fumaroles and a simmering lake. The sulfuric pool frequently changes hues and emits a geyser up to 600 feet into the steam-laden air. The water level of the lake has gone down about 15 meters during the past decade, one of several indications of a possible impending eruption. In the 1950s a small eruption pushed up a new cone on the crater floor; the cone is now 220 feet high and still puffing.


Garmin location map of the Poás Volcano and La Paz Waterfalls, southwest from the Botanical Gardens

Click on these thumbnails for a larger view
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Panoramic view of the volcano complex.

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Closer views of the crater.
As it turned out, the day was unusually clear and the wind blew the sulfur fumes away from us.

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