my trip to Mt. Aso - the largest volcanic crater on Earth
I'm tired so I'll have to add more later. But, for now:
Mt. Aso is actually a huge caldera formed by the collapse of the monster volcano that created most of the whole island I live on. The collapsed area is about 18 miles across and is pocked by numerous ridges and smaller (if you can call them small), much newer volcanoes. Each volcanic peak inside the caldera is a different age, so they all look different, with the oldest being rather smooth on top and the youngest still going off regularly. In fact, it was blowing quite a bit of sulfurous gas and steam while I was there.
You can drive your car right up to the rim of the active peak, or even take a bus, like 99.9999% of the toursits here do, but I wanted to actually hike it and some of the other peaks too, so I ended up walking something like 28 miles in 2 days and slept on the ground in my cold-weather sleeping bag. I was alone and way off from anyone else when I crashed for the night, and wouldn't you know it, the active peak acted up and started blowing enough sulfuric acid to shut part of the park down - while I was still well inside it. I was stopped by some guy in a gas mask at a scientific station that communicated this to me, but I already had a good idea of what was up, as the whole area was very hazy in the morning and all I could smell was the stink of sulfur. It cleared out pretty early though, so I decided to do some more walking and then headed back to the train station.
click here to see all the photos
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proper gear |
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improper gear |
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