Friday 29th – Up Stromboli Volcano

Pleased with our decision, as we woke to a brighter and calmer day, though who knows what will happen during the day. Breakfast was excellent, and we spent some time cruising on the waterfront people-watching. Met our tout again, and he says that only half a dozen companies still go out fishing at all, and only a few any day, though at the turn of last century that was all they did along with some coastal shipping. There is nothing here now but tourism, and no evidence of the old villages, as every building has been turned into either a holiday home or a B&B, all in standard “Greek Island” style with white paint and pergolas. The little 3-wheeler Apes are a laugh. There are hundreds of them, plus a huge number of petrol and electric scooters, and even golf buggies. All the walls have lines of deep scratches at Ape-tray height.

Groups climbing Stromboli

Throughout the day the cloud came and went over the peak, so we were not sure we would go on the trek until 4pm-ish when it was calm, reasonable clear, and not cold. We assembled our gear, and went and signed up, but had to rent some full boots as the descent apparently requires them. Off we went at 5pm, in a group of 20, and some 6 groups overall. Minimal safety talk, and a very solid pace up the hill, clearly faster than a few people could comfortably cope with. The guide was a Strombolani, knowledgeable, but more interested in getting people up than worrying about how they felt. We had 3 stops over 3 hours on the way up to near the top at 800m (from 50m), glad we were not doing it on a warm day as it would be very sweaty work. A well-defined track, starting with steps, then becoming more bouldery and black sharp Stromboli sand. We were treated to a perfect volcanic smoke ring at one point, seems this is a rarity.

Aftermath of an explosion

A nice little puff!

We got our view into the craters at about 800m, by which time it was near sunset at 8pm. We all perched on the rim in our groups some 300-500m from the 3 craters and were soon given a good shock by a decent explosion, fiery plume and black cloud from one of the craters. Of the three craters, one doesn’t appear to do much, one explodes a few times an hour with a good burst, and the last has four vents continually spitting out a little, and sometimes a lot, of smoke and red-hot rocks.

We were a bit surprised at the lax safety provisions – hard hats, “don’t run” and that was about it. Makes you realise how paranoid and PC NZ has become.

After a fair while at our first vantage point, we took our turn overlooking the 4-vent crater which obliged with a few good spits. It clearly doesn’t compare to Tanna in Vanuatu, at least at the moment, so maybe we will have to keep Tanna on our wishlist for some future trip. By this time we were well bundled up in all our warm gear and had our hard hats on and headtorches. Yesterday, those trekking up the volcano left in very windy conditions down at town level at 5pm and must have been extremely cold by the time they were on the exposed top. Were told today that they couldn’t even see the hand in front of their faces because it was such dense cloud. We were therefore extremely lucky to get virtually perfect conditions, including a sunset on the clear horizon, and very little wind. Left the top around 9pm, for a fearsomely quick 90 minutes down in the pitch-black night (no moon at all) down basically a huge sandhill. It was very steep and you pretty much just had to take big strides, sink heel-first well into the sand/dust and launch/slide yourself downhill. The guide was going way too quickly, with the group straggling out in little packs way behind us, and he never took count or made sure that people were OK. Pretty bad really, as racing steeply downhill on a black night on a very skinny track on a live volcano is not the safest thing to be doing. He wouldn’t last 2 trips as a guide in NZ, nor should he. However we coped ok with only a slightly achy knee and Achilles between us, and quite an experience.

Smokering and climbers

Arrived home at 10.45pm, very pleased to be back safe and sound and well pleased to have done the climb. Hot, sweaty and pretty dusty (had to wear dust masks for some of the trip downhill) so wanted to dive into the shower. Unfortunately, all those staying here who had been on trekking tours which got home before us must have done the same. The hot water ran out after about 1min and we ended up with cold showers. Brrrr. Jumped into bed but it took ages to warm up and get to sleep.