19 August 2001 - IYE

In July 2001 Mt Etna on the island of Sicily exploded dramatically into life. With streams of red-hot lava gushing out of fissures at various points on the mountain it might not seem like the best time to climb Europe's highest and most reliably destructive volcano. But life is either a glorious adventure or it is just staying at home and watching the Discovery Channel. So off we toddled, clutching our proof of insurance and wearing our asbestos underpants.

Etna in explosive action. Photo IVP

More information & links: About Mt Etna (recommended) 2001 Eruption (Italian) Etna from space More Etna Photos Even more Etna photos VolcanoWorld (recommended) More links - Volcanoes.com More links - Volcanology How to get there

The Mountain has Broken!

Etna from space, July 2001 Photo NOAA

Mt Etna erupts regularly and spectacularly - over the past centuries it has systematically destroyed villages and towns built (some would say foolishly) on its flanks. Its modus operandi is to open up fissures on its slopes and let rip millions of tonnes of red-hot lava. Moving as slowly as a few hundred yards a day, the lava scalds its way down the mountain and through everything in its path. In 1669 a lava flow from Etna reached all the way to Catania, some 20 miles distant, and erased a quarter of the town.

It was with some excitement that we learnt a few weeks ago that, as the local say, "Scassau a Muntagna!" - the Mountain has Broken!

Initial reports confirmed that lava was flowing from several vents between 1400 and 2900m; the villages of Zafferana Etnea and Nicolosi were threatened by the encroaching lava, as were various skilifts near the Rifugio Patienza. Catania airport was closed because of the plume of ash from the mountain, which was visible from space when we booked our tickets...

By the time we arrived, however, the lava had all but stopped flowing. The mountain was still active, blowing out a huge plume of smoke and grumbling in frequent "long period earthquakes". Rather than go and investigate rapidly solidifying lava, we decided to go round the North side of the mountain, untouched by recent lava flows, and be among the first to return to the summit craters after the recent activity.

Etna is a surprisingly high mountain - worth climbing

Etna blowing steam, showing new lava flows in the Valle del Bove. Photo Michael Liebreich

Etna is a high mountain, peaking at 3330m, give or take a few metres which come and go depending on volcanic activity. There are operators offering trips on four-wheel-drive trucks up to 2800m, leaving just 500m to climb, but where's the fun in that? We decided to tackle the mountain the hard way: on foot from the Citelli refuge at 1746m where the public road peters out.

The route starts among birch trees, which rapidly thin out, leaving you on bare lava slopes. The whole mountain has been formed by repeated lava flows, each overlaying earlier ones over hundreds of thousands of years. It takes hundreds of years for erosion to tame each lava flow, breaking it down to the point at which it can sustain plant life. The only plant which thrives here is the milk vetch, scrubby and dried out by the high-altitude sun which beats down wiht no respite.

Because the flanks of the volcano are not particularly steep, Etna is deceptive. It dominates the island of Sicily, but until you start climbing it's hard to grasp the scale. An hour after you set out you begin to grasp it. Behind you, the refuge dwindles, sunlight glinting off the solar panel on its roof. Your car is a speck of white under a tree in the distant car-park. But ahead of you the mountain hasn't changed, the plume of smoke rising from its summit, just as far away as ever.

Help! The ladybirds have eaten my brains

As seen on IfYouExplore

It's exhausting work. There is no real path, you just pick your way up the flank of the mountain. You can choose whether to stick to patches of volcanic scree or clamber across scrubby patches of milk-vetch. The scree collapses under your feet so for every two steps you climb, you slide back one. The smell of sheep-dung hovers in the air and the milk-vetch is covered with grasshoppers. As you approach they launch themselves in the air in their hundreds and thousands. Or are they locusts, massing themselves for an assualt on Europe's farmland? Is our punishment for global warming to be a biblical plague?

The only spots of colour to be seen are the ladybirds. Ladybirds are usually cute little things that eat aphids and occasionally land on you when you are in the garden. Here they are rather sinister. First they are BIG - up to half an inch long. Then there are lots of them. Every so often you dislodge a rock and under it you find dozens, scores, hundreds of ladybirds huddled together, a ladybird convention. And there are no aphids. Maybe they live deep in the magma column below Etna and only emerge to communicate with ladybirds from other planets. Maybe Etna is a huge planetary computer and they are the programmers, like the mice from the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy. Maybe... as you can see it's a long, hard and featureless climb.

The truth is up here

It takes over two hours to reach the Serra delle Concazze - a rocky ridge from which you are rewarded with your first really volcanic view, down into the Valle del Bove. Here we saw the first evidence of the recent volcanic activity: below us, a new lava flow showed black on the weathered brown surface of the valley floor. Ominously it cut across several paths that led across the valley - clearly we wouldn't be traversing the valley to reach the summit craters we could see billowing above us. But sadly no signs of red-hot lava for our intrepid readers. Sorry folks. But read on anyway...

No red-hot lava, but read on for more of this ... Photo Michael Liebreich

Instead we continued up the ridge, which climbs steeply to 2850m where you reach the incongruous whitewashed igloo which houses the volcano observatory. As we struggled up the last few rocky feet, sweaty and smeared with black volcanic dust, a large group of tourists disgorged from a truck to take pictures of the smoking summit. Unsure whether we were victims of the eruption, escapees from the local asylum or extras in a film on the apocalypse, they gave us a wide berth.

Just after the observatory you cross a plateau - the Piano delle Concazze. By pure chance it has avoided being inundated by lava-flows that have crunched past on either side, leaving it dead flat and sandy; a miniature desert lacking only cacti, 2900m up on a European mountain-side. If a flying saucer were to choose anywhere in Europe to land, this would be it. In fact you are so lightheaded from the altitude and dehydration that if little green men did come pouring out of a flying saucer at this point in your ascent of Etna you'd probably just nod and pass them without noticing anything strange. The truth is definitely up here.

From the observatory you are into a lifeless landscape. No more milk-vetch, or sheep; no more locusts or ladybirds, not even any flies. You follow the road for a few miles, circling the mountain. For a while it seems as though it's going to spiral its way right up to the summit craters you can no longer see, hidden by the curve of the summit cone.

Just keep walking and looking up!

Volcanic Bomb - just keep walking and looking up! Photo Michael Liebreich

The road cuts through flow after flow of lava, which the guidebook identifies by vintage. The 1971, deep colours, whiff of sulfur; 1964, fabulous nose, strong red tints; 1991/2 - very frolicsome that one, destroyed the old observatory. Between the lava flows the road crosses melt-water gullies and to our surprise we discover some of these still contain the remains of last season's, like an alpine glacier wearing a dirty black volcanic gravel coat. We cool off by digging out handfuls of snow and melting them against our wrists and foreheads. Although you won't find Etna featured in any British ski operators' brochures, there are ski lifts on both the North and South sides of the mountains, and you can rent equipment from several local refuges.

We leave the road and begin to climb. But first there is a sign - danger, do not pass this point - and a rope across the path. We've come too far to stop now, the summit craters have now reappeared, rimmed with sulfurous dribble, a mere few hundred metres climb above us. We duck under the rope.

The path meanders between lava outcrops. It is pockmarked with craters from lava bombs. They sit in craters ten feet across and four feet deep. I understand why they call them bombs. I wish I was watching this on the Discovery Channel. I try not to think of Stan Williams, the American who lead a group of volcanologists into the crater of Galeras to be killed and maimed. The rocks are hot to touch - is it because of the sun? Or because they have only been belched out of the earth this morning?

As seen on IfYouExplore

The final few metres. On our left the Bocca Subterminale, the highest peak of the summit complex. Smoking. On our right the mean-looking fractured lip of the Bocca Nuova, which the locals have told us to watch out for (how?). Smoking. Ahead of us the ground drops away precipitously into the Cratere Centrale. Smoking. Beneath our feet, black ash. Smoking. Turning right along the lip of the Cratere Centrale, our boots crunch down on yellow deposits of sulfur; you try not to step on fumaroles that are whistling with choking steam.

Bad Karma. Really bad Karma

As seen on IfYouExplore

It's a stunning spot, but boy does it have bad karma. The wind is threatening to knock you over; the sulfur is threatening to choke you; the fumaroles threaten to shoot scalding gases at you; the craters are threatening either to erupt and shower you with red-hot rocks or to draw you inexorably to jump into them.

Etna Cratere Centrale - don't look down. Photo Katherine Henderson

You're lightheaded from the altitude, the soft ash under your feet deprives you of balance and the billowing smoke all round makes you dizzy.

Phewmarole - what a scorcher! Photo Michael Liebreich

All around you are holes in the ground. The mountain appears to be breathing. This is not a place to hang around long...

Run Awaaaaaaaaay! Photo Michael Liebreich

...we did the only thing we could in the circumstances, in the fine tradition of Monty Python...

How to get there

We flew to Catania from Gatwick with Meridiana airways, with a stopover in Turin, at £220 per person. We stayed in the Hotel Bristol Park in the coastal resort of Taormina. Every room had a wonderful view of Mt Etna except ours, which had a tree in front of it. Car rental at Catania was straightforward, we used Alamo. Don't get a soft-top as it can be a bugger getting the volcanic ash out of the seat covers.