May 25, 2006. Crater Silvestri Inferior at Etna Volcano. We had a long but beautiful drive south today, mostly on Autostrasse (highway) A3, down though Calabria to Villa San Giovanni, across the Straits of Messina by Ferry (75 Euros), and then south the Etna. Owing to numerous wrong turns, we arrived at our hotel, Refugio Sapienza, late in the evening. The Refugio is located high on the southern flank of Etna, at about 6000 ft. elevation, just above the point where vegetation ends, in a region of active lateral venting. It has narrowly missed being inundated by lava in a recent eruption.

I took a short walk before dinner, past the complex of gift shops at the road’s end, and then up onto a pair of small craters or cinder cones called Crater Silvesrti Inferior. (The much larger Crater Silvesrti Superior is on the other side of the road). The trail circled around the tops of the craters. The air was very hazy, and the evening was becoming quite dim, but I could see below me a whole series of cinder cones. Some are evidentially quite old, judging by their extensive vegetation, and others appeared fresh. I suppose that this is a rift zone of some sort in which diking is very frequent. About ½ hour.

May 26, 2006. Ascent of Etna Volcano. Hannah and I set off from Refugio Sapienza at about 9 AM, after eating breakfast in the Hotel restaurant. Hannah decided we should head straight upslope, following a bulldozed ski trail that parallels a gondola. It was a very steep climb, and I’m afraid that Hannah was much faster at it than me (though in all fairness, I was carrying a 20-pound pack, while she was not). Most of the ground is covered with pretty normal-looking lava rubble and tephra, but one section appears to be some sort of lava dome. It has rocks that are platier and lighter colored than lava, and appears somewhat older than the surrounding lava flows, judging from the abundant vegetation. We reached the ski lodge at the top of the gondola in about ninety minutes.

We then took an unpaved jeep trail that switched back and forth, continuing the uphill climb. An occasional tour bus of tourists passed us, whipping up dust. So we took to cutting off many of the loops of the road, and walking through the gravely grey tephra. The area has many snow fields, which are now melting. Some are blanketed by layers of grey tephra. Some are carved into interesting shapes. My Argentine friend Enrique Triep would call these snow mounds pennitentes, because their peaked tops resemble the hoods of cloaks penitent sinners on pilgrimage. In another ninety minutes we reach the end of the road, and a largish crater or cinder cone called Torre del Filosofo (Tower of the Philosophers).

We ate lunch (more croissants and Nutella) sitting on the tephra, in a low dell that was not nearly as shaded from the wind as we would have liked. The wind here was really quite strong, blowing at maybe thirty m.p.h., but the air was fairly warm, 63 degrees Fahrenheit. Looking westward, down the flak of Etna, we could see a rolling countryside scattered with cinder cones and a couple of lakes. We then walked the loop trail around the crater, first descending to the bottom, where a yard-wide fissure is venting billowing white steam, and then up along the rim to the high point, where the wind so strong that we have to crouch to avoid being knocked over. Some parts of the crater rim sport yellow-green patches. Hannah thinks that they are sulfur. I think that they are algae.

To the north is the edifice of the central crater, a towering and steaming horn of rock that is surrounded by an eruptive haze. We walk towards it, across snow and tephra, as far as a small hornito (eruptive vent). We follow a collapsed lava tube up to the hornito, and then pass through a narrow slot that marks the point where lava poured out of the vent. Steam is billowing from a crack in the ground within the slow. We meet two hikers here. They take our picture and we theirs. Hannah and I then climb up onto the horn of the hornito, which is about 25 feet high and composed scoria rubble. The pit inside is just full of boulders, with no indication of a lava source. This is the highest point that we reach on our hike, 9680 feet according to my GPS. The central crater still towers above us, but we do not feel comfortable climbing any higher, because of the possibility of an eruption. We start down.

We avoid the jeep trail on the way back, walking instead across the snow and tephra on an arcing path just below the Torre. Walking on areas of pure tephra or pure snow is easy. But the regions where the two are mixed are really quite treacherous. Places where snow recently melted contain really loose gravel that bogs down one’s pace. Places with a thin layer of gravel atop hard snow are very slippery. At the downhill flank of the cinder cone we meet up with the lava flow, a wide aa flow that is several yards high. Just uphill of the flow is a region where volcanic bombs are strewn about the tephra. Hannah finds several that are at least two feet in diameter. Each sports a bread crust lava rind. I walk through the lava flow, following old lava tubes covered with fine, wind-blown tephra, while Hannah circles around it.

Hannah and I part company at the ski lodge. She takes the gondola down (12 Euros), while I descend the jeep trail. This region is particularly steep, and the trail has numerous switchbacks cut through recent lava flows. I pass a crucifix-bearing monument to Antonia Spina (I short lived hiker, I guess).

These lower slopes begin to have some vegetation. Most of the plants are growing in balls or hummocks, their roots binding themselves to the powdery tephra. Many have leathery leaves. Some sport yellow flowers. I also pass several smallish hornitos. I reach Refugio Sapienza just after 4PM, having hiked for 7 hours and 14 minutes. Hannah has arrived an hour before, of course. I sit on the stone staircase, resting and shaking the dust off of my clothes.