Etna, Life and Lava

Charles Rivière has a passion that not only is his love, but his livelihood too—and a dangerous one at that. For most of the year he fastidiously watches Etna—one of the world's most active and exciting volcanoes. In Nicolosi, pitched amongst Etna's fertile slopes, this Frenchman's home from home is a simple affair, where life and work merge on an old table. Here, Charles works at his laptop maintaining a virtual window that together with a handful of other sites, enables the rest of us to know what sort of day Etna's had. It's a bit like a child's school report card—'Not a bad day, with only one or two minor outburst in home-ec. and a temper tantrum in maths, needs to become more disciplined in where she directs her lava'—and like a child, you never quite know what Etna's going to do next. The rest of his flat is a spartan clutter of volcanic texts, periodicals and books interspersed with dust covered pictures, samples of sulphur, shards of obsidian and the odd spindle-bomb. A silver, mirror faced fire-suit, sits on a shelf in his bedroom, proclaiming—like the head of a statuesque monument—that this is a place devoted to the volcano, and little else.

Etna was a magnet for me too. Whenever she put on a new performance I always longed to be in the front row. On more than one occasion I had dropped whatever I was doing in the UK, jumping on the next available flight to Sicily. Addiction or fanaticism or perhaps even love, maybe it's a bit of each, but whatever you call it—'it' contrives to get me onto the volcano, usually as close to the action as possible. This was my forth visit in eighteen months. Previous visits had each been memorable in their own way, I had seen an eruption from inside a crater, watched an eight hundred metre high lava fountain, I'd even seen one of Etna's summit craters blow perfect smoke rings. Yet I had never managed to get close to that most quintessential of volcanic features—a lava flow.

These glowing rivers may not be as dramatic or as fatal as pyroclastic emissions—few have actually died as a consequence of a lava flow—but their dynamic beauty is undeniable. I had joined Charles for the week, climbing Etna each day to watch and document several lava flows issuing from a fracture, high on the South East Crater. I was also here to soak up the particular ambience that is unique to an active volcano. Charles had long since been pickled in this atmosphere, scaling Etna on an almost daily basis year after year. Few knew it better. Yet nothing remains the same for long here—wide vistas and entire areas of topography can radically change, sometimes literally overnight.

Esagonal, a bar, eatery, clothes, and souvenirs shop rolled into one, stands near the Rifugio Sapienza. It's the highest place you can get a descent Cappuccino, or drive to on Etna. The wood-clad building is a favourite gathering point where guides and other locals meet, drink espresso and reinforced the social ties of friendship and a common state-of-being, that is Etna. We had begun each day here with a breakfast rendezvous, eating pan-chocolate and hot aranchino—stuffed rice balls coated with breadcrumbs and shaped like volcanic-bombs. Yet it was hard to take more than a sip or a mouthful of anything, without pausing to greet one person or another, as part of an unending web of helloes and handshakes. At an undefined moment Charles—who spoke practically no English—would indicate that it was time to go.

Although unusable now as anything other than a shelter, the Torre del Filosofo at the base of Etna's summit craters was still significant in so much as it marked the point at which tourists are discouraged from going any nearer to Etna's business-end. Warning signs explain the sometimes not so obvious risks in a number of languages, while a narrow rope hung between rusty steel rods symbolically acted as a deterrent. For most who come up the volcano this was close enough, with impressive views of Etna's South East and Bocca Nuova craters looming menacingly above. Thick steam laced with sulphurous, acidic gasses, pours almost constantly from the craters in great wheeling, cauliflower swirls. Tens of thousands of tons of sulphur dioxide alone are vented from Etna each day, stinging eyes and restricting breathing for those who happen too close.

The ground crunched underfoot, as we passed beneath the rope and headed up over a huge blanket of scoria—coke-like lava honeycombed with bubbles, it's the volcanic equivalent of froth from a Champagne bottle. Sepia dust trailed from our tracks as we walked towards the summit's eastern flank with Charles setting a fierce pace. He didn't like the thought of any tourists seeing us walking into the danger zone, in case it encouraged them to follow. The rope was just a symbol of danger, nothing more. If anyone had a mind to go closer, they could, but at their own risk—and the risk is very real indeed. The previous day a Spanish Professor of Geology had come up here to spend the night and was now overdue. We were here to see the latest activity, but we were also keeping our eyes pealed for any sign of her whereabouts. As we made our way around the sulphur stained fringes of the South East Crater we could hear the occasional hum of a distant helicopter searching the volcano, hoping to find her safe. With each passing hour the authorities were becoming more and more anxious as the chances of finding her safe diminished.

The moonscape was pitted with impact craters made by volcanic bombs, some of which were huge. We rested by one that was more than four metres across, weighing perhaps twenty tons or more. Ironically, these massive chunks of lava were now our only means of protection should the volcano unexpectedly erupt again. Hervé Charles, a Belgie artist who had spent the last three days with us, knew only too well how quickly such protection could be needed. Last year on the 16th of April he had been watching the Sudestina; a subsidiary vent to the main South East crater. Standing only a few metres away, lava began to fountain out of the vent. At first the lava was not very high, but as the fountain grew, so Hervé and his companions retreated. Suddenly the main South East crater burst into life sending a vast curtain of incandescent lava two, three then five hundred metres into the air. Hervé watched the unfolding drama from the small 1971 cone, less than 400 hundred metres from the crater, as the lava fountain grew higher and higher. Then without warning, the fountain began erupting not up, but out at forty-five degrees—straight in their direction. "We just looked up at the glowing lava as it came nearer and nearer until it was directly over us. I was in the middle of changing my film and at the moment that the fountain changed direction I just remember grabbing everything I had and running for cover". Only there was no cover to be found. One of Hervé 's companion—a veteran volcano man—knew to run and keep on running until he was out of danger, but Hervé and another man—a tourist who had been exploring the crater oblivious of the risks—were less experienced and decided to shelter behind the cone. "I just crouched down with the other man, who was hysterical with fear, holding my bag over my head as glowing hunks of lava a metre across rained around us" One landed less than an arms length from Hervé. Yet miraculously both men survived, although the tourist was hospitalised for several weeks with multiple fractures to his ankle, sustained when he jumped from the top of the ‘71 cone.

Of course in retrospect Charles had told Hervé that where he had sheltered for protection—was no protection at all. Only a solid hunk of rock like the ones we were now walking amongst would give any modicum of safety. Looking up at the steaming crater we could see that things were comparatively quiet, but the wind was making it hard to hear anything, so Charles phoned Systema Poseidon; the organisation responsible for monitoring Etna's activity. If anything was going on up here, they would know about it. Fortunately everything appeared quiet on their bank of seismometers—for the time being at least.

As well as making it hard to hear, the wind was also knotting itself into manic dust-devils that sandblasted everything they caught. These mini tornadoes were powerful enough dislodge precariously balanced bombs, so that time and again are progress was halted as spinning shards of lava hurtled past trailing grit and dust. Nothing was stable here, and with each step came the risk of sending more rocks down the slope. And as if climbing this unstable, forty degree slope, carrying heavy camera gear while dodge rocks—wasn't bad enough—the wind was laced with an acrid haze of choking, sulphurous gasses.

Active volcanoes can be uncomfortable places at the best of times, the Romans even thought of Etna as the gateway to Hell. This seemed all too understandable as I sweated my way towards its summit, but even the most malevolent volcano has its compensations. One of which was the sight that greeted me as we finally made it to the far side of the funnel like hornitos that toped the fracture we had climbed to. At first I didn't see it, I was watching gas shimmering with heat as it jetted loudly from a reddened hole. Charles shouted over the din, pointing down a steep mass of freshly chilled basalt. It was then that my gaze fell on a glowing stream of lava as it gushed from an opening near the base of the hornitos. Here, closer than I had ever been, was the very blood-and-flesh of Etna. I was instantly transfixed by this fiery alchemy, fluid rock that posed a thousand questions. Below us the lava slowed and widened into a broad river of red and to its right a second flow and a third beyond that. It was an unforgettable scene of unease. The direction of the flows could change at any time, blocking our way back or worse. Yet, It's remarkable how quickly something that at first is unfamiliar and frightening, soon becomes less-so. Even to the point where to get as close as you can to a thousand degree lava flow can seem, at the time, an okay thing to do.

The previous day Charles had tried hooking some lava from one of the flows with a climbing axe, but with only the protective head gear and gloves from his fire suit, it was not enough. Charles's sleeve had immediately charred and even the breast-piece that hung from the helmet had a brown burn mark. Luckily Charles was unhurt, but it was a sobering reminder that years of experience, is no guarantee of immunity, things can still go dangerously wrong. Today Charles had climbed with the full suit, so together we took turns walking right up to the biggest flow. It was a heavy, claustrophobic experience, with my laboured breathing amplified in the headpiece like a scene from Scott's Alien. On several occasions the smell of burning rubber wafted in the air and I looked down to see a haze of heat beneath my boots. I also melted one of my walking poles and part of my pack, which was becoming par-for-the-course. Finding a small orange ladybird sheltering between the craggy clinker just inches from a lava flow—was definitely not. The tiny insect's colour matched the flows’ perfectly, even down to the tiny black dots on its back. Life always seems to finds a way, and we can but marvel at its tenacity. The people, like the wildlife here, have become accustomed to Etna in all her moods.

Later I walked up the north side of Etna alone and in the dark, to photograph the lava flows at night. I had begun climbing at 1am, hoping to reach the lava before dawn, but the wind and dust and fumes conspired to turn me back just short of my goal. I'd planed to be off the volcano and back to the Sapienza by half-eight to meet Charles for the last time, but when I arrived, he was nowhere to be seen. Unbeknown to me Charles had received an early call and with a number of guides and rescue officials, had gone up to the summit craters in search of the missing Professor. After four days of anguish, using everything from helicopters to sniffer-dogs, she had finally been found, two hundred metres down in the north west vent of Bocca Nuova. She had apparently fallen in, perhaps overcome by gas or maybe by loosing her footing in a sudden gust of wind. No one knew for sure, but whatever the cause, she was dead and her body beyond reach.

I met-up with Charles as he arrived back at Esagonal; dust and sweat, and a solemn look of resigned inevitability on his face. He handed me an unused body-bag to put in the car. It was a sobering symbol of a tragic loss. I had gone into Bocca Nuova's sulphur stained crater a number of times, with others and on my own, but I had always kept my distance from the vents. This woman, who—by all accounts—was not one for rushing in where angels fear to tread, and who was well equipped for a night on the mountain, had in someway misjudged Etna—and had paid for it with her life.

It seems absurd in a way, but that afternoon Charles, his girlfriend and myself went back up to the lava flows one last time, to see the spectacle in the dimming light of dusk. Nunzio Di Salvo—the owner of Esagonal—and his daughter, soon joined us and together we watched as the lava threaded down into the Valle Del Leone. It was a magnificent end to a remarkable week, and perhaps a fitting tribute to the loss of a kindred spirit. I had never met the Spanish professor and yet the common need to commune with these "fire mountains" had forged a mutual bond, one that I shared with Charles and all the people I had come to know here. We sat in the fading light watching the glowing swathes thread over the blackened landscape. The wind incessantly whipped dust from the sides of the crater, mixing it with burning, acrid steam—fresh from Etna's guts. Yet even so, to leave such a spectacle, can sometimes be nigh on impossible.

Charles has made Etna his life. A life that for a brief time I felt a part of, and hoped to do so again—from time to time. But I couldn't help thinking of the dangers that accompany such a life and wonder if he or I, will one day fall victim to the omnipotent power of a volcano. A thought that brings with it fear, and its own strange kind of comfort. It's simple really, the volcano is in complete control and we have no alternative but to trust or not. Rich or poor, child or professor, in the scheme of things it makes no difference. A volcano knows nothing of these things and in its shadow, all are equal.