Telica | Wild Camping

If you manage to do the intermediate BDR/TAT/TET sections on a motorcycle you will be fine coming up here. There is few steep sections (many are improved by a surface of a mix of concrete and rocks). Just keep the front wheel down if you are loaded. I would not recommend it in wet conditions.

You can pitch a tent at the sloped trailhead parking but we did not have a quiet night. All night long there were local people (guides?) coming and going and tourist shuttles arriving at 4 am. They were all but not quiet. But all in all we felt secure.

I recommend to pitch the tent left of the trail which leads to the upcoming ranch (we did not see it in the dark). There is a shaded sandy/grassy spot a bit off the parking lot. You could even park a van there.

We did a sunset hike to the crater. From here it is 40 mins one way. A local will wait at the top for you to charge 3 USD/pp. He also sells beer and sodas (90 Cordobas). Watch the sunset at the bat cave then come back and wait until it is pitch black. Then you will see the red glow and magma in the crater. Bring your torches!

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Here’s everything I wish I had known before riding to Telica Volcano to camp on my own. I read all the iOverlander reports, and also asked tour organizers in León, and it was still pretty unclear what this trip would entail, and made for a pretty difficult adventure.

You access the volcano from Nic 3, map to Centro Recreativo el Primo (on iOverlander & Google). To reach this is a few miles of sand road. I was on an adventure motorcycle, and this stretch was ok for me, the sand was mostly compacted. But if you struggle here, do not keep going! This is the easiest part, and things get much more difficult if you try to head up the volcano. At this center is a clear sign now that says Telica 8km.

The first 4km of this are ok, similar to the bottom a mix of sand, silt, some rock and more elevation gain. After that point things get steeper, and about 2 km from the trail, is an incredibly silty hill. Not sure how it would be in a car or 4x4, but getting up it on my bike was extremely challenging. In the rainy season it would be even worse if this road turned to mud.

Eventually you get to this pin, which is a very obvious parking lot area where you can access the volcano. The trail goes straight up from by the pit toilet. There is an upper parking spot at the base of the volcano and a lower spot slightly hidden in the trees. This is where I intended to camp, however when the tour groups showed up, they advised me it was not safe to camp here alone. Not sure that would apply to people in pairs or with a roof tent, but they thought solo with a tent it was a bad idea and told me to continue to a ranch 1 km further. On iOverlander & maps me, this is where the road ends & some people say it’s the furthest you can go. That’s not true, the road does continue, but it’s an even more difficult stretch. Like the lower road but worse.

I reached the ranch in the dark and they told me about camping (but seemed confused). They said the camp spot was 25-30 minutes walking, and that I could park at the ranch. I’m sure with a vehicle you could also just park in their lot, though it has all the standard loud roosters dogs & cows.
The hike up the trail to the basecamp was incredibly difficult in the dark, I got lost, and also lost some of my gear because it was so steep that I couldn’t carry everything. It actually took over an hour to reach the camping spot. This camping is what the volcano tours use for their overnight tours, it’s only reachable on foot (even though it is confusingly on iOverlander). If I had to do it over again, I would book a tour and not try to go alone. If you have a solid 4x4, are on a small motorcycle (250cc or less) with good tires and a buddy, it might be a different story. The volcano is stunning, and it’s nice to see it at sunrise or sunset but going from León with a tour would probably be much nicer.

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Amazing place, wild camping at its best! Great sunset and sunrise, no one around, short hike up to the crater. No one to collect fees. You need at least high clearance and you might no make it to the end of the road, if you don't have a 4x4 (you can try though). Way is often overgrown, will be hard for rigs higher than 3 meters or much wider than 2 meters. Road starts from Highway 3 (I'll make a pin) Google and Maps.me did try to make us access from a track coming from the highway up north - no chance.

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We drove up here starting from the nic12 road between Telica and Chinandega. At first together with a 2wd van with lsd and fair bit of clearance, but road was to bad to continue.
Bit confusing with all the different entries around this mountain. We weren't able to reach the other spots, marked south-east from this point, from this side. Probably they used the road starting from Nic26.

Beautiful sights, but no lava and/or glow. Easy hike up. We did it with kids 4 and 6 in 45min.
No people around, didn't pay anything.

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Seems like there has barely been any tourists here since 2018 and probably none since the pandemic.

We made it up to this point following the trail from the NIC-12 with our Land Cruiser using 4WD in dry conditions. Probably also possible in the wet but much harder. High clearance is needed in any case.
Our biggest challenge on the drive up was fixing the deteriorated gate so it would open high enough for us to pass through.

Although the trail seems to continue beyond these coordinates, we parked our vehicle here and hiked up the footpath on Open Street Maps to the crater rim which took us about 35 minutes.

Looking down into the crater is amazing and there are good views too. Also there is a small bat cave you can explore.
We did not meet anyone who asked us to pay entrance fees and everything looked rather abandoned.
So it was a great adventure for just the two of us! Definitely recommended.

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There was nobody here when we arrived. Couple minutes later a lady showed up to collect fee C$100pp. Trail was marked and easy to follow. It took us less than an hour to get up. We waited until dark, but didn't see any glow, but the crater is smoking. Sleeping at the trailhead was quiet, there were no sunset nor sunrise tours. Driving down we met couple cars and an ox cart, be careful in the narrow sections.

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we arrived here just after dark because it took us abut longer than expected
but we were there just with a 2wd ford Van. the tour guides and driver said they never saw that kind of vehicle making it to the end and we had a big laugh about it
we just told the drivers to next time buy a van instead of an suv as they could take more people up the volcano :-)
didn't see anybody at the entrance so weren't charged.
from the moment the sunset tours left we had the place to ourselves until 10am in the morning when we left.

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Small level, shaded, parking area at the trailhead for Volcan Telica. There's even a pit toilet.

We drove our 4x4 Chevy truck and camper all the way to the trailhead, no problems. 4x4 is helpful, but you'll probably be ok with good tires and plenty of clearance. Road and trail are both shown on OSM.

The hike to the volcano is pretty easy. It's only about 700ft of elevation gain from here. Volcano is cool, lots of smoke and sulfur. You can hear it belching and sizzling looking into the crater .There's even some magma glowing in the bottom.

The views from the top of the mountain are incredible. We even met a local up top who had packed a cooler there to sell cold beer.

There was no one around when we arrived, but there were a couple small tours that showed up in the evening to watch the sun set. We had the night and the morning all to ourselves. Very quiet, nice and dark. Great place to spend a night or two.

We were charged $5pp for entry and camping and given a very official looking recipt. We were told the money goes to the local community who maintain the trails and the road. It looks like they've put a lot of work into it, so we don't mind.

Highly recommended, we haven't had a nice quiet night under the stars since Belize.

Oh- Safety wise, on top of the mountain next to the trail there is some monitoring equipment, complete with cameras and solar panels. Easily accessed and not secured or guarded at all. If that stuff doesn't walk away up here, you're probably safe. When I asked the local selling beer on the volcano if the area was safe, he got a huge smile on his face and told me the all the grazing horses wouldn't bother us.

The few locals we saw ride by (on horses.. :) waved and smiled.

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Thats the furthest you can drive. Hike trail starts here. Rough road after the last camping spot on this same road.

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