Panorama Photo

... is something not to be expected these days. One eruption happened on Domenica delle Palme; the first of April, the latest one the day before yesterday; 12th of April. We have been travelling through Sicily in the Settimana di Pasqua, it was an inspiring trip. On the afternoon of Giovedi Santo a strong thunderstorm was rushing through the northwest of the island, removing most of the moisture pondering around Etna. Consequently, the mooring of Venerdi Santo was used to visit the mountain. Taking the tight itenary into account, we took the easy and touristic approach from the south side. Here the cable-car of the ski-resort brings you to about 2500 m elevation, about 400 m additional elevation gain is achived with 4 x 4 Unimog based busses crawling up a spectacular gravel roadbed flanked by snow walls of several meters height.

Close be the place of the former mountain hut Torre del Filosofo a path is circulating around a crater venting the magma chamber in the 1960ies. The southward view goes into the crater of the 2002/2003 eruption.

Snow was falling in the course of the thunderstorm of the day before, presenting the area in fresh white colors and hiding most of the ash-fall of the April 1st eruption. The ground is still warm, a stark contrast to the wind-chill of about 5-6 Beaufort with basic temperatures around 0°C.

The main crater kept hidden under a cloud cover, I marked the fresh crater build up by the recent eruption series. It was not there when I visited the mountain two years ago.

For an update of the volcanic and seismic activities of Etna I recommend the homepage by Oliver Beck www.vulkan-etna-update.de/index.html or www.volcanodiscovery.com/etna.html. Good pictures of the area can be found at www.hikr.org/tour/post26833.html

Technical stuff: Canon 550D, 21 HF RAWs taken at 11:10 on 6th April 2012. f/18, 1/200-400, 17 mm (29 mm KB). DPP, Hugin, Gimp.