Conquering Mt. Etna

It happened on the third Saturday of September 1999. Kind of sounds like a opening for a murder mystery doesn’t it? Well any ways, there was a total of four people who decided pretty much at the spur of the moment that we were going to venture up the largest active volcano in Europe. Does this sound like something sane people do in their spare time? Well it does if you're in the Navy Reserves on an extended tour of duty, thanks to warring factions in Kosovo and our former President.
We all piled into our little Fiat, four people in a roller skate, it is no wonder we called these things ‘clown cars’. If you do not know, these cars are about the same size as a Subaru Justy. We started off about 9:00 o’clock in the morning, a car load of Americans on Italian roads.
We’re driving along their narrow, two lane highways, laughing, talking, really enjoying ourselves. We drove through cities and towns and the higher we get up this mountain the less dense the population got. The higher we went, the more crooked the roads became. There is so many turns on this road it almost seemed like you were doing figure eights. About the last twelve kilometers up the mountain, the two things you can see were the beautiful aerial view of the starting point and the molten rock from previous volcanic eruptions. The rocks were of a dark color, mostly black with streaks of golds, oranges, or rust throughout. These rocks were
very porous in texture.
Around one curve, there is an old stone house, or should I say an old slate, shingled roof, with part of a house still underneath. It was obvious that this house was caught sleeping during the lava eruption, for it had not
moved fast enough. There is a story behind the wooden door on the outside of this building. It was told that it withstood the heat of the hot, melting lava. When it finally cooled an impression on the door, was left on the lava.
So myself and the other reservist finally made it to the part where are all the tours started. We parked the car, walked into the visitor center, and waited in the fast moving line to get our ticket for our gondola ride up the mountain. We paid our money, rode the gondola half way up Mt. Etna, and got off. This is when we discovered that we had made a serious mistake. We found that if we wanted to get to the actual top of the volcano, we would have to hike it. We decided that since we already made it this far, there was need to turn around. We had Panini’s, it is an Italian sandwich that is very similiar to a Philly Cheese Steak.
After our snack we ventured up the mountain.
The first few steps were easy, they were sort of flat, well at least they weren’t as rocky. It was similiar to walking on asphalt. Along the way, we encountered rocks of all sizes.
After that part we hit the heavy waves, the rock formations, the loose rocks, the uneven hills. After awhile our legs and backs were feeling the strain of up hill climbing. We decided to take a much needed break. While resting, I glanced down and noticed three lady bugs. Their red, little bodies were a beautiful contrast of the different shades of gray of the rock. The higher we climbed, the more of the view we saw of the island. It was truly a breathtaking sight.
We get about three-quarters of the way up the ’short-cut’ and we are pretty well exhausted and we approached to the road, the road that the jeeps and everyone else was using. We take a look at the terrain that we would have to cross if we were to continue upwards in the same direction. It was smooth, like sand on the beach smooth so we decided to keep going in our straight line. Forty five minutes later we are finally with in walking distance of the actual lava flow.
We get to the top of this plateau and there was a snack bar. In front of this building there was two white stakes stuck in the ground and on each side there is a different language. The English sign read, “May Peace Prevail On Earth” and another sign read “Altitude m.3.000". These two posts also mark the starting point where everyone has to walk to see the river of molten rock.
This path is well used, the easiest walking of the whole trip so far. As you walk this path you don’t see any trees, no grass, just some rather interesting lava formations from earlier eruptions. Some of these piles of magma are still cooling. Some of these structures are several feet high, towering over your head. Their colorations are the black to dark gray, with the streaks of yellow(sulfur), the copper colors, and the different shades of rust. They really are something to see.
This path does a little winding around but it is pretty much a straight shot back. It runs about a half a mile or so. Once you come to the end you see the orange-blackish color of the lava flowing slowly down the mountain. The most remarkable thing about this flow of melted rock is the people using this liquid rock to make a living. Yes you read it right. There was two men on this particular flow that were using a long rod with a flat end. It looked like a huge stir stick for coffee. One man would use this rod and punch through the outer core of the lava and he would pull out as much lava as would stay on the flat part. Then he would pull it towards him and lay the pole on the ground and take another pole that looked like a branding iron and he would smash it down, until the lava sort of looked like a bowl. after a few seconds he would pick up this bowl with a pair of thick gloves and a pair of pliers with a long handle. He would walk over, about thirty feet or so and hand it to the other person where he would put it down and throw a cup of ice into the bowl. Within five seconds that ice would turning into a mist. Within thirty seconds the water would be totally evaporated. Once the water was gone you could make out the design in the bottom of the bowl, it was an indentation of Mt. Etna and the name underneath. They sold these, the cool ones down in the gift shop for a few Lira.
We watched this for a couple of evolutions and we decided that we wanted to take a few pictures. The touristy photos, we all had to have us standing in front of the magma. Now none of us were keen enough to realize that if it would turn ice into vapor in a very short time what it could do to a pair of tennis shoes. Well I almost melted the shoes off the bottom of my feet. In fact I did shift the bottom of my soles a little bit.
So we got our pictures, so we had seen them making their lava souvenirs and we were tired and a little hungry so we decided to walk back down the mountain. We decided to follow the road back. We made it back down the mountain in forty five minutes when it took us nearly three and a half hours to climb it. Then at the bottom we did some souvenir shopping. It was really quite an interesting day.