Up Etna

 I am still at the COMEX 7 conference, and enjoying the physics talks.  Yesterday (Wednesday) there was an afternoon off, with an optional excursion organised, taking willing attendees up to near the summit of Mt Etna.  Etna last had an eruption only a matter of a few weeks ago.  In fact, one of my colleagues, Jim Al-Khalili, told me he recently had a trip cancelled as all planes were stopped from flying into Catania airport because of the eruption.  I saw on the web that ash had fallen all over the city, including on the runway.  Well ... I trusted the tour guides to know whether it was safe for us to go up, and the excursion did go ahead.  It involved a pretty long coach journey up as far as it is possible to drive a coach, followed by a cable car trip up to a higher elevation, and finally a kind of bus-cum-moon-buggy to take us even closer to the top.

That 'closer to the top' was tantalisingly not quite up to the crater that erupts, but pretty close.  The ground was desolate and we were walking on ash that had only recently fallen there.  In fact, some of it had covered the winter snow fall, and we could see patches of snow just below the "soil".  The snow was protected from melting by the soil.  That was a bit weird.  It was pretty cool being up there, but kind of a shame not to see lava, or steaming vents, or a crater ... Here are some photos of the trip