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Today I was exchanging mails with Edoardo, asking things like «what do you plan for the next weekends»? As he answered that he is planning to climb Etna by skis or snowshoes, I spent some time browsing old documents from that spot.
This little panorama comes from three shots which I collected leaning the compact camera on a stone, which was not easy since every stone in this place was as sharp as a knife.
It was nearly 02 am, since I had started to cycle up the Etna from the orange fields below Belpasso as late as 05 pm. Having spent the previous two weeks on the road, I was not even informed that the volcano was active, so it was a welcome surprise, after enjoying the full moon from behind La Montagnola (www.panoramio.com/photo/76135176), to see a red glare rising from the Valle del Bove (www.panoramio.com/photo/76135004). Higher on, before reaching the Torre del Filosofo where I unfolded my sleeping bag, I dared to leave the bicycle along the jeep track (no need even to lock it, since I was completely alone on the volcano that night) and to walk some hundreds of metres towards the lava. I was very conservative in this, since I could not reliably evaluate my distance from the flows.
I do not expect a picture of such desolate quality to meet the expectations of the Betrachter - consequently, there is a fair probability that the panorama will be withdrawn very soon. However, it happens to witness an experience which one does not have every night!
3 shots, Canon G7, 35 mm equiv, ISO 200, f/2.8, 15 sec.
Sebastian Becher, Peter Brandt, Wolfgang Bremer, Hans-Jörg Bäuerle, Mentor Depret, Johannes Ha, Christian Hönig, Thomas Janeck, Wilfried Malz, Giuseppe Marzulli, Jan Lindgaard Rasmussen, Danko Rihter, Patrick Runggaldier, Walter Schmidt, Matthias Stoffels, Jens Vischer, Alexander Von Mackensen
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Comments
Cheers, Hans-Jörg
Anyway quite an amazing pic!
The original plan was to eat dinner at Rifugio Sapienza, and to continue the ascent the following day. But when I showed up at the desk of the restaurant I was not considered that much. You know, nowadays you *are* what you consume; if you show up alone and, moreover, on a "miserable" bicycle, you are likely to consume little, hence...
So, I thought: Why not push up? Push up is the right expression, since combining the gradient and the sandy track you are very often pushing the vehicle up there. At the end, however, I realized that it was perfectly feasible to reach Torre del Filosofo, so to say, before night. And this turned out to be no bad idea, as you may guess from here - provided you are able to overlook the "desolate quality"!!
For information, now this old refuge at 2942 m is ruined and covered by debris. Its name refers to the philosopher Empedocles, who according to the tradition threw himself into the fire of Etna in a supreme effort to "melt" with Nature... German speaking people should know this story due to both a poem (Empedokles) and a play (Der Tod des Empedokles - unfinished if I am not wrong) by Fr. Hölderlin.
Cheers, Alberto.
Morevover, in the Nahbereich you can see how bad is the transition between the leftmost picture and the next one - actually, due to the nature of the "light source", conditions were wildly instable!
I did not work to hide this interesting feature. Similarly, you can see some grey suspended spots which are the ashes passing by, hit by the beam of the headlamp which I did not turn off.
Cheers, Alberto.
Penso che non sia facile fare queste foto e so anche, che i sassi la su non sostituiscono un cavalletto :-)
Spero che ci mostri altre foto di questo posto con l´eruzione del Etna
Saluti, Patrick
Kind regards, Matthias.
Greetings Wolfgang
Patrick: no, della montagna in azione non ce ne sono altre. Un altro scatto piú a destra avrebbe mostrato come ci fossero dei sassoni a sbarrare il proseguimento del panorama, ma si legava male al resto.
Ti dirò anche che avevo anche una certa fretta di tornare sui miei passi. La lava era a distanza di sicurezza, ma era il terreno che sembrava fatto apposta per storcersi una caviglia, mai visto nulla di simile. Sentivo comunque, nel complesso, una strana sensazione di essere un intruso in quel posto.
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