Without a Traceroute

I came to Stromboli to hike the volcano, and it was awesome. Not in the ordinary, “this burger is awesome” (although a burger would be awesome right now) sense, but rather awesome in the literal, “inspiring feelings of awe” sense.

Stromboli has been erupting continuously throughout recorded human history. And it’s a long one, the Aeolian islands have been continually inhabited since before the ancient Greeks. While Plato was holding forth at the Academy, Stromboli was erupting. While Jesus Christ was dying on a cross, Stromboli was erupting. While the Vandals were sacking Rome a few hundred miles to the North, Stromboli was erupting. While kingdoms and empires rose and fell, Stromboli was erupting. Watching molten rock fountaining from the ground, the same way it has for at least the past 2,500 years or so (and in all likelihood, much longer than that) one can’t help but feel that there are forces in the universe which operate on their own timescale—with utter indifference to human affairs—like the callous and capricious gods of antiquity. These are forces of nature so vast and grand the human mind struggles to comprehend them. There’s no reason to believe Stromboli couldn’t go on erupting long after our species has vanished into extinction.

The hike to the crater took about 2.5 hours, and was fairly strenuous with an 800 m (2,600 feet) elevation gain. I went with an almost entirely Francophone tour group, but the guide also took the time to explain things to me in English. It’s actually against the law to hike the volcano above 400 m, except with an organized tour group. I suspect this is more of a money-making scam on the part of the local government than a genuine safety requirement: €3 of the price of every guided trip goes to the government.

The trail is quite obvious, both going up, and coming down. And the overlook point is far enough back from the crater that there was no significant danger. The only real danger could come from flying debris expelled by the crater (which apparently does happen occasionally, as evidenced by my damaged helmet) but other than telling us when to put on our helmets, there’s nothing our guide could have done to keep us safe from chunks of flaming rock falling out of the sky. A few well-placed, multilingual warning signs and perhaps a control booth at the bottom of the trail to keep the numbers of hikers in check during high-season would do plenty for safety.

It was especially surprising because the National Park Service at Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii doesn’t seem to have any problem with people hiking out to see the Kilauea lava flows unescorted, something I did myself a few years back. I’m used to the United States being worse than other countries when it comes to putting in place onerous “safety” requirements, coating things in soft foam rubber and putting up signs telling you not to climb on things.

Other than the fact that both experiences included volcanoes, hiking Stromboli was about as different as possible from Kilauea. Whereas the approach to the Kilauea flow is across a vast, otherworldly level sheet of freshly (within the last 20 years) cooled volcanic rock, most of the climb up Stromboli is fairly ordinary mountain trail hiking, with only occasional sections where volcanic ash has killed off the vegetation. While Kilauea produces a stream of lava flowing into the sea, and associated boiling saltwater; Stromboli has exploding, fountaining showers of lava from three separate points inside a much larger crater.

It was a pretty fantastic experience, and well worth the added trouble of getting to this relatively remote island. The village of Stromboli is nothing to write home about, only about 350 people live there, and the economy seems largely dependent on volcano tourism. I spent €20 to stay at a vastly inferior hotel, but only for one night. The next morning, I headed back to Milazzo, bypassing the medicinal mudbaths on Volcano.

My own camera was not really up to the task, but if you’d like to see some nice video that gives a good sense of what the eruptions actually look like: