recent eruption of Mt. Etna<\/a> in Italy, I\u2019m reminded of a trip I made there in 1991 to photograph the volcano. It was an incredible and fortuitous trip \u2013 below you\u2019ll find photos and the story behind the trip!<\/p>\nMt. Etna Volcanic Eruption, July 2001<\/p>\n
Upon returning from a trip to Bolivia in South America I turned on CNN as I was unpacking my bags and getting ready for a little down time at home. This is my typical routine to try and catch up on the news and world events as I can spend several weeks away from television and radio and in the days before the internet it was far more difficult to try and keep abreast of what\u2019s been going on while I was away.<\/p>\n
The lead story as I began sorting camera gear was of Mount Etna, the largest volcano in Europe.\u00a0 The reporters were focused on tremendous explosions coming from the summit and a river of lava that was slowly flowing down the flanks of the mountain threatening the town and homes in the valley below.\u00a0 What I saw, however, was not a great tragedy but an extraordinary event, nature in all its glory and I knew I just had to photograph it!<\/p>\n
I was just home from three weeks in the field in Bolivia and instantly any thought of rest and jet lag vanished.\u00a0 With the phone in one hand, stuffing laundry into the washer with the other, I called my friend Patrice Aguilar, living in Marseilles in the south of France, and convinced him to drive down to Rome the following day, pick me up an drive me the length of Italy to Sicily. I can be very compelling at times.\u00a0 With his agreement my next call was to secure a flight and about 35 hours from the time I saw the news flash on the TV I was in Sicily.\u00a0 When it happens, you must be prepared and ready to go\u2014no hesitation, no thinking about it, I just do it and worry about the consequences later.<\/p>\n
With a four-wheel drive truck and a couple of press passes in hand we managed to find our way to the town where fire trucks were spraying down the leading edge of the lava river solidifying it and managing to redirect the flow around and out of harm\u2019s way.\u00a0 As I sat there and watched this spectacle my first thoughts were if you were building a town on one of the most active volcanoes on the planet, wouldn\u2019t you expect this would be coming some day?\u00a0 Perhaps that\u2019s why they had the fire trucks standing by\u2026.<\/p>\n
Though this was where you would find all the news crews doing their filming and reporting, this was at about 4,000 feet with only a view of the leading edge of the lava and this was not what I flew half the way around the world to see. The real event was up at 10,000 feet, up at the summit of Mount Etna, the source of all the destruction and mayhem.<\/p>\n
Purchasing a map at a local store I could see there was a four-wheel drive track leading up the back side of the mountain offering far greater promise for what I was after.\u00a0 Leaving the CNN and European news crews behind we drove around the mountain, camped at the base enjoying some fine Sicilian fare we picked up in the town before we left, and before sunrise the next day drove our rig as high up on the mountain as we possibly could.\u00a0 Patrice is one heck of a driver. Determined to get us within reach of our goal he managed to navigate our way up to about 9,000 feet where we left the rig continuing on foot the remainder of the way.<\/p>\n
Everyone else covering the action was left behind on the other side of the mountain, once we left the crowds and the last small town, we didn\u2019t see another car or person again.\u00a0 By noon we were standing on the summit of Mount Etna with a view to the south looking down at the source of the lava river. One of the many cinder cones that dot the summit of the mountain had opened and began to spew forth its red-hot river of lava.<\/p>\n
It was an absolutely beautiful sight to stand there and witness the raw power and beauty, the elemental art of the planet. I was in awe of the power to melt rock into this viscous ooze that flowed out from the depths of the mantle.\u00a0 For some time, Patrice and I just stood there trying to take it all in, the only two people around witnessing this amazing sight.<\/p>\n
I knew the beauty I was seeing could not be adequately recorded on the Fujichrome Velvia film I had in my bags so we sat there on the summit just watching the performance and waiting for dusk when the ambient light would allow the lava to glow in all its glory. The darker it would get the more evident it would be in the tiny fissures and openings of the flow.<\/p>\n
This was taking place in the month of July 2001 and though it was hot down in the valley below, up on the summit at 10,000 feet there was quite a chill in the air. It was getting colder as the sun began dipping below the horizon.\u00a0Much to our relief the winds shifted as the sun went down and soon, we were basking in the warmth of the lava itself. There\u2019s nothing quite like being warmed by the primal heat of the earth.<\/p>\n
Serendipity wasn\u2019t quite done shining on us yet.\u00a0 As the sun descended a full moon rose over the opposite horizon shining through the plume of the eruption which rose some 2,000 feet above the summit.\u00a0 The conditions couldn\u2019t have been more perfect. To capture the full view of what I was witness to I shot this scene with a 16mm lens.\u00a0 You can see the explosion before you, though the scale won\u2019t reveal the massive orbs of lava being thrown from the crater were the size of Volkswagen vans. Additionally, what you can\u2019t get from photos is the sound of an active volcano expelling molten lava high up into the air. I don\u2019t think it could have been louder If I had been standing behind a 747 on the tarmac with its engines at full power. It was extraordinary. This was far beyond anything my senses have experienced before or since. And then the smells\u2014the molten earth was pungent and yet subtle, a bit like a strong barbecue, it did not have the rotten egg sulfur smell that you might imagine, for that I was quite grateful.<\/p>\n
As I stood there photographing well into the evening the winds brought forth a gentle snow of pumice.\u00a0 They were cool to the touch and constantly sprinkled our heads and decorated the landscape at our feet. \u00a0At times we\u2019d just break into spontaneous laughter, it was unreal and almost a fantasy.<\/p>\n
In my decades as a globe-trotting photographer this is one of my more memorable moments.\u00a0 Just 48 hours earlier I was getting out of a taxi at my home, thinking over what I had just shot in Bolivia, concerned with getting my laundry done, getting slides into the lab to be developed, thinking about working in the yard the following day\u2026 but instead I found myself sitting atop an erupting volcano as far away from my home as you could get with a good friend from France whom I\u2019d not seen years.\u00a0 Life is good sometimes.<\/p>\n
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