The Mount Etna Mission!

At 3300 Mt Etna is biggest and supposedly most active volcano in Europe. We decided to tackle it in a day from sea to summit as it sounded like a worthy challenge! We were told we had to take a guide to get up the last 15 mins to tje crater so we resigned ourselves to that, but decided to skip the gondola and jeep part that would just be cheating. The road goes to 1900 and after cycling that we would go on foot. Realising 3300 climb is rather large undertaking so we set off at 6 am. We cycled through the city in the dark and climbed up to Nicolosi where the city finally ends. It was drizzling and we were worried if our plan would succeed. Finally out of the 'city' the clouds cleared a bit as we cycled through giant old lava fields. Rather tired we finally reached the Refugio Sapienza at 9.45 am where the road ends.

We had been told there was an info centre there, but no such thing could we find, only the grumpy gondola man who could tell us nothing. So we headed up the rocky slope and reached the top of the gondola in about an hour and a half having climbed over some lava flows and up some steep screes. There seemed to be no track whatsoever. It was very misty and only a few people were around and no jeeps seemed to be running at all!

We continued up until we reached the top of hut where we were supposed to get guides, but there was noone there at all. We continued up through some snow folowing some old footprints. Then we came to a snow patch where many large boulders seemed to have landed - overtop of the footprints - without makingany trails int he snow in large craters as if they had landed form some height - a tad unnerved we continued up over hot ground covered in steam and sulfur. Suddenly the cloud cleared amd we could see the crater rim ahead of us. The whole landscape was reveiled and it was spectacular.


We could see miles down into the Catania below several layers of clouds like we were in an aeroplane it felt so high. Beside us was the Southwest crater billowing huge quantities of steam and below us we could see other craters spread out across the slopes. The crater we stood beside was billowing steam which was horribly smelly when it came our way so we didn't stay too long on the summit.

We ran down the shingly slopes admiring all we hadnot seen in the mist on the way up. We got down to the gondola and had a much needed refuel in the afternoon sun, thenm ran the final bit down to the bikes. It was a surreal cruise down the hairpins amongst huge lava flows with the sun setting and we 'whoopeeeed' as we went. Then Chris got 2 more flat tyres! (but luckily by now he was gettingsuper fast at fixing them!) With our flashing lights we entered Catania and negotiated the terrifying traffic to finally arrive safely back at the campspot at 6pm for a well deserved feed.

Later in the evening we spoke to the camp guy who said there had been an eruption of the southwest crater the night before which explained all the mysterious boulders in the snow!! Yikes!!

Since the Mt Etna Mission we have had two more days in Catania doing some more paddling in some interesting seas! (as shown in the photos and video below!). Tommorrow we are going on a train trip to the North Coast for our last few days in Sicily where we hope to visit the Volcano Islands! Today we are trying to sell our now shiny, clean bikes )0: On Dec 2 we fly out from Rome heading for Dubai! So ciao for now (0: