Today seemed like a forever day of traveling! We caught a boat from Lipari to Sicily and then we had a 2+ hour bus ride to Mt. Etna. We had a good lunch in a refugio near where we hiked. The temperatures are much colder here and there has been snow in the higher elevations on and off for the past couple of weeks!
Mt Etna is the highest active volcano in Europe rising about 10, 902 ft. In May 2013 it was named an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The mountain has always dominated the villages and towns that lie it's shadow because of the destruction that is possible but they also benefit from the rich soil at the bottom which is rich with agriculture! This is a picture of the last major lava flow from 2002!
We walked entirely on volcanic ash today
It takes hundreds of years for the volcanic rock to be turned into plantable, growable soil. This is a picture of the first plant to grow. The roots of this plant can grow to be 3 meters long. . .actually it is life an underground tree and only the canopy of the tree is visible
Mt Etna is the highest active volcano in Europe rising about 10, 902 ft. In May 2013 it was named an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The mountain has always dominated the villages and towns that lie it's shadow because of the destruction that is possible but they also benefit from the rich soil at the bottom which is rich with agriculture! This is a picture of the last major lava flow from 2002!
We walked entirely on volcanic ash today
It takes hundreds of years for the volcanic rock to be turned into plantable, growable soil. This is a picture of the first plant to grow. The roots of this plant can grow to be 3 meters long. . .actually it is life an underground tree and only the canopy of the tree is visible
The picture above is the next plant that will come in and it is know as the broom plant. In this part of Mt Etna Beech trees would be the trees that will grow last.
When an eruption occurs it can send this "lava bombs" flying through the air. This one is huge! But they can be found in all sizes littered around the area. We learned from our guide today that the surrounding towns don really have an evacuation plan for eruptions. . .the kids learn in schools how to get out of the building but there is no large scale evacuation plan. Which seems kind of crazy when there have been significant eruptions in the past 15 years!!
After hiking around we got back into the bas to visit a lava tube. Which is a cave that is formed when the lava on the top of the flow cools early and then there is a layer of lava flowing underneath it! We needed helmets and "torches" for our short expedition!
They actually used to use these lava caves for snow storage in the summer to make ice cream!! They would pack the tube full of snow in the winter and cover it with straw and mules would cart it down into towns and they would make ice cream/gelato!!!
Tomorrow we will drive to another part of Mt Etna and hike but won't be able to summit because of snow and increased volcanic activity on the mountain!!!