BABY, IT’S HOT OUT THERE
John Wilmott points out the world’s best places to go for a bit of volcano-spotting
UNITED STATES
Ask a child to paint a picture of a volcano and they will come up with something like those in the Cascades; symmetrical cones with white tops. Running through California, Oregon and Washington, they punch through a landscape of endless forest.
Crater Lake is a natural masterpiece, a 10km-wide stretch of blue water, the deepest in the US. Further north, the beautiful cones of Mount Hood and Mount Rainier catch the eye from the cities of Portland and Seattle respectively; between the two is spectacular Mount St Helens.
NEW ZEALAND
Around the town of Rotorua, located in the Bay of Plenty on the North Island, the surreal, orange-rimmed Champagne Pool and Pohutu geyser — which fizzes up to 30m — are highlights, though you’ll even see sulphurous steam rising from boiling mud in locals’ back yards. Come evening, Maori tribespeople will entertain you over a dinner cooked in a naturally heated pit. About 175km further south in the Tongariro National Park, the distinctive Mount Ngauruhoe stood in for Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films.
INDONESIA
Java alone has 45 active volcanoes, and there was a fairly major eruption there in July. Many are great, brooding domes that have photographers drooling. Mount Bromo is the classic one, and it’s magical to watch the rising sun light up the mountain. Others include the bright-turquoise crater lake on the Ijen Plateau and Tangkuban Perahu.
HAWAII
The Hawaiian islands were born when volcanoes, rooted to the deep-sea floor, broke the surface — and the process is ongoing. The Big Island is where the giants live — Mauna Loa and Kilaeau, the latter being among the world’s liveliest volcanoes. It has been continuously active for 34 years and the already enormous amount of lava flowing towards the sea has increased over the past year. It’s hard to comprehend this maelstrom when you are wandering in the rainforests nearby.
ETNA AND STROMBOLI
It is quite easy to get to the top of Etna, Europe’s biggest volcano, which covers 1 100km² of Sicily. Drive up through contorted lava fields to the visitor centre, then take a cable car up another 600m, from where you can take a truck-style bus to a pair of bleak craters. Not far across the sea is Stromboli, a volcano-island that has been in a bad temper for almost 2 000 years. Fireworks can be witnessed on a regular basis, usually as explosive ejections of molten rocks.
ECUADOR
Quito, the capital, is known as the “City in the Sky” — more than 2 700m up in the Andes. It is also the gateway to the Avenue of the Volcanoes, a 320km stretch lined with peaks — including seven that soar more than 5km. Some phenomenal viewpoints can be reached without arduous trekking, such as the nearperfect cone of Cotopaxi shimmering just beyond Quito; the vistas from the Devil’s Nose train are superb too. Other highlights include the blue crater lake of Cuicocha.
VESUVIUS
It wasn’t lava that killed at least 15 000 people at Pompeii and Herculaneum in AD79, but pyroclastic flow — a fast-moving wall of searing gas and rock. While Vesuvius hasn’t blown its top since 1944, it is still considered
dangerous, especially being so close to Naples. Vehicles can go up to 1km, from where there is a dusty trail to the summit rim at 1.2km — an hour’s hike. Don’t expect more than a few puffs of smoke, but the views down into the great bowl and across the Bay of Naples are outstanding.
ICELAND
Everyone remembers — though few could pronounce — Eyjafjallajokull, whose dust clouds grounded planes in 2010. Yet Eyja is a baby in volcanically hyper Iceland. As well as various cone-shaped peaks, the island boasts Geysir, with the only regularly spouting hot spring in Europe, along with vast lava fields, bubbling mud pools, geo-heated lakes, fumaroles and craters.
The “forest” of lava formations at Dimmuborgir is fascinating. In the west, the ice-capped Snaefellsjokull was the inspiration for Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
LA PALMA
This Canary isle is gaining a reputation as a place to walk among volcanic splendours. The highlight is the Caldera de Taburiente. It’s a lovely drive through pines to its 2.4km rim, where you’ll find walks overlooking the abyss.
The Ruta de los Volcanes further south boasts two more calderas (one erupted in 1971) and dramatic rust-red terrain.
THE AZORES
The main island in this Atlantic archipelago, São Miguel, has two lakes set in its main caldera — best viewed from the rim above — and the lush crater of Furnas, where food is cooked in the hot ground. A short flight away on Faial, the enormous collapsed hole in the centre is the inverse of the 2km pyramid volcano of Pico across the channel, but the main source of geological interest is Capelinhos. Over 13 months in 1957-58, so much material erupted from an underwater vent that a new peninsula was formed.
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