The Volcano

In the car on the way. So cool!!!

What else is needed to get your attention? I spent a while just now trying to come up with an eye-catching title for this post, and then realized that embellishing this thing is not necessary: Volcanos are cool. Full stop.

I've known about this volcano (Nyiragongo) since before Karen and I came to DRC. According to the definitions of some volcanologists, it is in a state of constant eruption. It's about 11,300 ft. above sea level, putting it just under 7000 ft. higher than the city of Goma (pop. over 1 million), which was devastated when it sent lava flowing down its banks in 1977, and then again in 2002. They say it's not a question of whether Nyiragongo will erupt like that (and ruin Goma again), just a question of when (wikipedia tells me that since 1882 it has erupted 34 times).

They say it's erupting even right now because it has a constantly-boiling real-live, Lord-of-the-Ring's-esque lake of lava in the crater at the top. It's a huge thing (internet stats tell me anywhere from .4 to 1.2 miles wide), and it is in fact the largest lava lake on earth (there are only 5 continuous lava lakes in the whole world!). The crater itself is breathtaking enough without the lava, being more than a thousand feet deep and several miles wide.

But the lava lake... oh. It's maybe the most breath-taking natural wonder I've ever seen. I find waves entrancing, and love watching them. Similarly, I can also watch a fire dance around for a while. A liquid, boiling, lava lake is kind of like both of those things combined, on steroids, and gone Super Sayan after 20 years in a hyperbolic chamber (my apologies for anyone who lost me on the Dragonball Z reference). It's just amazing.


The last 5 steps or so before you get to the actual edge of the crater rim, you start to hear it. These loud sounds, explosions, coming up from beneath you. And then carefully you look over (so you don't fall 1000 feet to your death), and your face gets hit with an odd warmth, and it just overwhelms you like a ball pit at McDonald's.

This is what it looks like to watch the volcano.

Just kidding, it's way better than that. All we did on top was just sit and watch it, and we did so for hours. The lake, like any boiling entity, is dynamic. So right now there's two "lava fountains" down on the right, but in 45 seconds there will be three on the left, and it's kind of all flowing from the middle to the outside, where it either gets tucked under the edge or flung up on it, glowing in it's otherworldly and fiery shade, that is (quite rationally) exactly the color of molten metal that you see in forges and smelt's and places that used to be all over Pittsburgh.

And at night... oh man. That's when you really see how bright it all is. I sometimes wanted to put on sunglasses. It was that bright. The actions remain the same, but you can see the cracks in the top of the lava lake more easily, and in fact they almost seem to widen at night (though I think they're just brighter, and thus more easy to see).

he hike itself was fantastic. The Lord answered my prayers, and it didn't rain on us at all! We hike all 5 miles, with 5,000 feet of elevation gain, in about 5.5 hours. Not bad at all. I was greatly aided by a trekking pole loaned to me by our friend Joelle. That's sad, actually. Cuz Joelle was originally supposed to go with us (and thus would have been using her trekking pole), but she sprained her ankle a few weeks beforehand, and wasn't healed enough to do the hike.

She was wise to not hike with a weak ankle, by the way, because we were on loose, misshapen, volcanic rock about 70% of the time. Lots of people fell, and the rocks were often shifting under our feet. But it was still a very enjoyable hike for me. Call me odd, but I rather enjoy hiking on rock, and this was no exception. Although we were in just regular forest for the first hour, it soon gave way to low bushes and shrubs for the next 2 hours, as we hike over the 2002 lava flow (amazing to me that it already had that much vegetation on it). There were 20-30 foot long lava tubes scattered around (imagine metal pipe about 10 inches in diameter, perfectly smooth and circular on the inside and but on the outside it looks like rock), and once we climbed past the cave where the 2002 lava came out, entered back into forest-ish cover. The trees were actual quite cedar-like, and we even saw some Ross's turaccos.

In addition to all of this, the air was unusually clear, and we could see the two nearby 14'ers (Mikeno, where the Gorillas and Guerillas live, and Karisimbi, right on the border with Rwanda). I've NEVER seen them so clearly, and it was such a treat to see such tall mountains, both of which are higher than anything in lower 48 states.

In the evening we made bean and cheese quesadillas (which one fellow hiker told us "everyone was talking about") using the white cheddar cheese I found the day beforehand, and then watched the volcano some more.


As you can see from the pictures, the lava lake is constantly smoking. I believe that ash is actually the rock itself, just turned into itty bitty peices and then carried away by the wind created from the tremendous heat (hot air rises). Anyway, if the wind was blowing toward us we couldn't really much, and it smelled like sulfur and was actually much more difficult to hike in. But most of the time it blew away from us and was just amazing.

After a warm night's sleep (thank you to everyone who told us horror stories about it being cold, because we were well prepared) I got up to watch the sunrise, we ate bagels, took a few last looks at the lake, and then headed back down again at 7am (imposed by the guides. I would have stayed much longer!!).

It was only maybe 3.5 hours down, and actually remarkably encouraging for the state of my knee. The next day, though, my calves and left quad (the healthy one, which I can really put more weight on, and which was not being supported by the trekking pole) were ACHING. I haven't felt that sore in years, not even after I played an ultimate tournament in 2015. Wow. Super sore. But totally worth it.