Erta Ale volcano. Lava lake, the hotel of a thousand stars and the mystery of the Afar skirts. Fire lake Erta Ale Lava lakes Erta Ale

Erta Ale Volcano (Ethiopia) - detailed description, location, reviews, photos and videos.

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“Smoking Mountain” - this is how the name of the Erta Ale volcano is translated from Ethiopian, but those who saw it with their own eyes prefer to call it less sublimely and more specifically - the road to hell. And this is not an exaggeration at all: Erta Ale is one of the few constantly active volcanoes on the planet with regular eruptions and two whole lakes of hot lava “included”. Such a violent temperament is not at all surprising: Erta Ale is located in the very heart of the Afar Triangle - the zone of the strongest volcanic activity, where, as before, like billions of years ago, the formation of the Earth’s surface continues. However, the hellish conditions of “vacation” on Erta Ale do not frighten avid travelers: every year about a thousand tourists come here to stand on the edge of a hot crater, admiring the play of the fiery fissures of the lava lake, wander along the slopes black from solidified lava and simply breathe the Erta Ale air, temperature which reaches +50 °C.

A little geography

The Erta Ale volcano is located in northeastern Ethiopia in the remote Afar region of the Danakil Desert, a center of volcanic activity East Africa and one of the few places on the planet where active volcanoes with lava lakes in the crater have survived to this day. Erta Ale is also famous for the fact that there are two such lakes near the volcano - this makes it the only volcano of its kind on Earth. The volcano has been continuously active since 1967 and has previously had several major eruptions, the earliest records of which date back to the 1600s. Regular lava eruptions are one of the characteristic features of Erta Ale. Thanks to the lava pouring onto the slopes and then solidifying, the volcano grows - today it reaches 613 m (its base is located at 75 m below sea level). The caldera - the volcano basin - stretches for 1.6 km with a width of 700 m and includes two lava lakes 350 and 65 m wide.

What to see

In Erta Ale, without exaggeration, everything is beautiful: the coal-black slopes formed by centuries-old eruptions of hot lava, the impressively sized basin, and the hellish crater itself, on the edge of which it is so pleasant to sit and think about the eternal. Erta Ale is an attraction “for its own people”, therefore tourism infrastructure there is none here: the crater of the volcano is not even fenced, and therefore it is necessary to exercise extreme caution, and it is better to forget about selfies altogether. As a souvenir of the volcano, you can take a piece of frozen lava - according to reviews from experienced gardeners, it is also an excellent fertilizer.

Erta Ale is especially beautiful in dark time days when fiery cracks in lava lakes illuminate the slopes of the crater with a bright orange light - as if the damper of a steel furnace had been opened.

A trip to Erta Ale is often combined with a visit to the Valley of Dalol Geysers - a shallow depression covered with a layer of very salty water with salt crystals rising above the surface and geysers swirling everywhere.

Practical information

Closest to Erta Ale locality- Makele city. Several tour operators offer 3-5 day 4WD jeep tours to the volcano and an 8-day camel trek. It should be borne in mind that the area is inhabited by Afar tribes that are not the friendliest to tourists.

I was asked here: why go to Ethiopia?
And I immediately said: “How?! Why?! There’s a lake full of lava!”

And then it cooled down, which is what the lava realized. Probably my delight is difficult to understand for those who have never seen it.
Alas, my brain and heart are forever scorched by the heat of the Tolbachik lava. And having seen this once, I wanted to repeat the banquet. I wanted to feel this unreal heat again with every cell of my skin, to hear this rustling and crackling with which the lava crawls out of the bowels of the Earth.
But they are in the past. But there is the Erta Ale volcano in Ethiopia. Oddly enough, it is considered almost the most accessible volcano with a lava lake.

Erta Ale is a volcano located in the remote Afar region of northeastern Ethiopia. The name of the volcano means “smoking mountain”.

The Erta Ale volcano is located in the Danakil Desert; it lies below sea level and is part of the so-called “Afar Triangle” - a zone of strong volcanic activity.

Around lunchtime we arrived at the place where trekking to the volcano begins.
The volcano was visible on the horizon and was not impressive. Not a volcano, but some kind of misunderstanding.

The sun was not hot like a child's. The air temperature was approaching the boiling point of my brain.
Judging by the sadness of my colleagues - not just mine.
Even a short three-hour trek in such heat poses a danger to unprepared organisms. So before sunset we were offered to settle down in huts, where it was still hot and stuffy, but at least the sun was scorching.

Again, a good chance to get some sleep before a sleepless night.
But I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t sit down. There is a volcano and lava nearby, and here we are...
I wandered around the area impatiently.

Towards evening, military personnel marched towards the volcano. I really wanted to hope that we wouldn’t need them. But rules are rules. The movement of tourists in this region without armed guards is prohibited.

And finally, hurray! The sun crept towards the horizon, and they began to serve us dinner.
- Eat more! Drink more!

I still didn't feel like eating.
Do you want to lose weight? Ask me how...

All things during trekking are carried on camels.
The truth of the things is there: mattresses, water and tourists who cannot get up on their own.

At sunset we began our climb.

The climb itself is an easy walk lightly. In the dark, however, nothing is visible. So you won't be able to admire the scenery. Moreover, you need to be very careful. I literally took a couple of steps to the side, letting the camels pass, and immediately fell into a cavity formed by lava. She escaped with a slight fright and a completely torn leg.

But as soon as it got dark, there were red flashes in the direction where the lava lake was.

Having reached our overnight stop, we took a short rest and immediately went to the crater with the lake.

In photographs on the Internet, the lake looks like this: a crater and somewhere far below there is a lake with lava.
But what we saw exceeded all expectations. Over the past five years, the lava level in the lake has risen by 30 meters. As a result, you come and see - here it is lava. At least eat it with a spoon. If, of course, you can get a fireproof suit.

At night the lake looks very impressive. Darkness. Bright red lines constantly changing patterns. And periodically, like fireworks, one or another bubble with lava explodes.

The rustle of a lava flow and a slowly creeping fiery mass.

However, in the dark it is difficult to assess the scale of the lake, the crater and the surrounding reality.

So, after a couple of hours of listening to fireworks, streams, and rustling sounds, we returned to camp.

Everyone chose a place to their liking where to throw the mattress, among sleeping people, stone barriers and camels.
The hotel of a thousand stars welcomed its guests.
As I fell asleep, I habitually waved my hand to Orion, who was spread out directly above my head.

But we literally slept for a couple of hours.
In complete darkness, before dawn, we returned to the lake again. The guys were going to take pictures from a quadcopter. As a result, Borya shot everything he wanted and even made a film.

And we just watched how the sky brightened and the colors changed.

Sasha stubbornly tried to take a selfie in the car mirror (don’t ask why). Borya filmed this wonderful spectacle.

Lava beat in a nervous fit into the banks, observing this spectacle.

In the end, as usual, my mother came and did everything.
Vidocq, of course, is still the same after a sleepless night. Not best time for selfies.

Meanwhile, everything around was becoming brighter. And more and more people came to watch the sunrise.

In the light, the lava was not so brightly fiery. But no less spectacular.
In addition, all the gurgles and overflows could be seen better.

The sun was in no hurry to come out. Everyone stood as close as possible to the lava. Well, as hot as it gets.

And hooray! The sun rose!

Night. My legs ache and the rain is lashing the tent. The wind seeps through the cracks under the awning and blows through the light tropical tent, forcing us to press closer and closer to each other. One can’t help but think: what are we doing here? But the rain subsides, and, emerging from under the wet hem of the tent, we take a couple of steps towards the edge of the volcano’s crater. A gust of wind blows away the steam coming from the crater, and we no longer remember either the wet tent or the chill. Even our feet no longer hurt, but want to jump with excitement, but we can’t - there is fragile pumice under our shoes, and a few hundred meters below us an orange-red lake of lava is boiling. We had already donated a tripod to the volcano, fortunately, without a camera - it was blown away by a gust of wind when it was left on the edge for just a second. Let's consider this a ritual sacrifice.

Like a giant kaleidoscope, the oval of the lake is constantly changing. In the black crust of slag on its surface, bright scarlet cracks open, like lightning splitting the night sky. Fountains of lava spurting from cracks push slabs of slag towards the edges of the crater, where they melt and sink, only to rise again to the surface of this giant boiling cauldron. In minutes, tens, or even hundreds of millions of years of the planet’s history flash before us: the movement of black plates on the “surface” of the lake is a miniature copy of the movement of tectonic plates on the surface of the Earth.

We have been dreaming about climbing Nyiragongo for over two years. After visiting the lava lake at the top of the Erta Ale volcano in Ethiopia, we became fascinated by volcanoes. Since then we've been able to visit Krakatau and a couple of other active fire mountains in Indonesia, as well as the notorious Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. But only lava lakes allow you to truly get closer to the seething depths of the earth and feel the power of our planet hidden under the earth’s crust.

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Lava lakes- cauldrons of seething molten basalt - periodically appear and disappear in volcanoes around the world, but only a few such lakes are known to be permanent. In addition, all of the five existing on this moment lava lakes are very difficult to access. One is actually in Antarctica, in the crater of Mount Erebus. Try it, get there! Another - recently reappeared in Halemaumau Crater Hawaiian volcano Kilauea is closed to visitors for security reasons: apparently, the Americans are playing it safe. There are also lava lakes in the craters of Marum and Benbow volcanoes on Ambrym Island in Vanuatu, but getting there is also not easy, and because weather conditions they are not always visible. And finally, two lava lakes are located in Africa. The lake in the Erta-Ale volcano, which we have already developed, can only be reached during an expensive multi-day expedition in jeeps through one of the hottest and most unsuitable deserts in the world. The other, in the crater of the Nyiragongo volcano, is located just a dozen kilometers from the million-plus city of Goma, and can be easily reached in just a day. But - and with lava lakes there is always a but - it is located on the territory of the Congo, and this imposes its own characteristics on the visit.

Goma is located on the shores of Lake Kivu, right on the border with Rwanda. This former upscale Belgian resort has been in the news in recent decades, not in the best light, either in connection with armed groups hiding in the Congo after the Rwandan genocide, or in connection with the volcanic eruption in 2002, which wiped out half the city, or in apocalyptic forecasts of a limnological catastrophe, the cause of which will be the release of huge amount carbon dioxide and methane dissolved in the depths of Kivu.

If you are worried “about our tourists in the Congo,” do not worry - the largest contingent of peacekeepers in the world is deployed in the Congo - about 20 thousand. Of these, about a quarter are located in the province of Nord-Kivu, and several thousand are located directly in Goma. Goma is therefore a center of calm, at least compared to the chaos occurring in other parts of the former Zaire.

Military conflicts in the area have long subsided, but for several years the volcano remained closed to visitors. The Virunga Park Authority was forced to restrict access to some parts of the park, including the volcano, due to charcoal burns. Those living close to the Gazprom office should be reminded that food in Africa is mostly cooked on coals, and as a result, deforestation is big business. For several years, armed groups of charcoal burners fought with the rangers of the national park, until the “forest brothers” were finally pacified. Since March 2010, the park has been reopened to tourists.

At the border we were met by a guide named Emmanuel (a pygmy, although he himself denies this). Having given him dollars for visas, we stood waiting on a bare piece of land between Rwanda and Congo, not daring to take out our cameras and photograph the photogenic African women who, with amazing dexterity, rushed from border to border, carrying huge bowls of watermelons or cabbages on their heads. Emmanuel soon returned with a letter from the head of immigration himself, and just half an hour later, after our names, ages and places of employment had been manually recorded in three places, yellow fever vaccination certificates had been scrutinized and passports had been stamped, we were freed from the bureaucratic shackles .

A car with equipment was waiting for us on the other side of the barrier. A year ago, when we first visited the city on foot, burdened with backpacks, Goma seemed to us an ominous post-apocalyptic hole. But now, looking at it from the window of the jeep, Goma was not much different from another big African city. Having picked up tickets at the central office of the national park and a cook with provisions from watchtowers With the airport partially flooded by the lava flow of the 2002 eruption, we headed towards the volcano.

At the foot we were met by rangers with AK-47s, each of which had several additional magazines with cartridges attached with duct tape. According to the guest book, ascents occur several times a week. The first part of the climb leads through a tropical forest, the trees of which, those that survived the charcoal burns, seem to be embraced by frozen lava, which, surprisingly, did not burn the tree, but simply decided to envelop its base. Orchids nod overhead. The Gaboon viper, one of the continent's deadliest snakes, lurks in the bushes, but we notice it and avoid it. On the passes, sharp porous stones dig into tired buttocks - this is reminiscent of the lava of the 2002 eruption, when at an altitude of 2800 meters a crack opened in the volcano, through which a lake of fire flowed out, but the lava did not reach the city, but stopped here. Lava from another fissure, which opened just a few kilometers from the airport, leveled half of Goma and stopped only after reaching Lake Kivu. Steam is pouring out of a crack at an altitude of 2800 meters - this, as the guide explained, is rainwater that has seeped into the hot rocks.

At an altitude of 3000 meters the landscape changes dramatically - we are suddenly surrounded by a forest of giant lobelias. At this height they stand like quaint trees, but the higher up the slope, the smaller and smaller they become, resembling cabbage plantings rather than trees.

One more steep climb and we reach the rim of the crater. It's not dark yet. The walls of the crater go down in terraces, marking the previous levels of the lava lake. It seethes several hundred meters below us. In the light of day, the lake looks almost calm, but as darkness falls, the volcano’s activity increases, and it begins to resemble a huge boiling cauldron of tomato soup. We set up camp and try our cook's cooking.

Climbing Nyiragongo, seeing the lava lake and descending took less than a day and cost about half a thousand dollars per person, that is, about the same amount as visiting other famous attractions in the region. We tasted these delights earlier - and flew on balloons over the endless expanses of the Serengeti, and looked into the eyes of mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and visited other lava lakes... But, standing on the edge of the Nyiragongo crater, holding hands tightly, as if holding each other from the alluring kaleidoscope of the deadly lake, we do not for a second we remembered the effort, money, kilometers or time that we had to sacrifice in order to see for ourselves, with our own eyes, what our planet is capable of.

Volcano Nyiragongo is located in national park Virunga in the Congo on the border with Rwanda. This is one of the most active volcanoes Africa: Since 1882, 34 eruptions have been recorded, including many periods where activity was continuous for many years.

The main crater of the volcano is 250 meters deep and 2 km wide, and a lava lake sometimes forms in it. In terms of the amount of lava, the lake of the Nyiragongo volcano is the most voluminous of the lava lakes today. The depth of the lake largely depends on the activity of the volcano. The maximum observed lava level in the crater reached 3250m.

Nyiragongo lava is unusually liquid and flowing, such features are caused by a special chemical composition - it contains very little quartz. Thus, during an eruption, lava flows flowing along the slope of the volcano can reach speeds of 100 km/h.

Between 1894 and 1977, there was an active lava lake in the crater and on January 10, 1977, when the walls of the crater collapsed, violent eruption. It lasted about an hour and claimed 70 lives, wiping out nearby villages, and although the exact number of deaths was impossible to determine, unofficial estimates put them at several thousand.

Today, the eruptions of the Nyiragongo volcano are considered unprecedented, because no other volcano in the world has such steeply inclined walls and a lava lake with such a dangerous composition.

Another major eruption occurred in January 2002. However, fortunately, people were warned about the danger. 400,000 people were evacuated. And yet, many who did not hear about the impending eruption paid dearly for it. 147 people died during the eruption from asphyxiation and the effects of the earthquake caused by the volcano's activity.

Six months later, Nyiragongo erupted again. The volcano continues to remain active to this day. In June 2012, a team of scientists and intrepid explorers stepped onto the shore of a lava lake boiling in the depths of the Nyiragongo crater. These photographs were taken by Oliver Grunewald during an expedition to Nyiragongo Crater Lake.




















In the northeast of Ethiopia, in the Danakil Desert, is located active volcano Erta Ale, in the crater of which you can see streams of molten lava escaping from the very center of the earth. Due to the constant activity, as a result of which clouds of smoke appear over the surface of the volcano every now and then, the Erta Ale volcano got its name, translated into Russian as “Smoking Volcano”.

Erta Ale is a basalt shield volcano, one of five volcanoes on our planet, in the heart of which there is a lava lake. But only Erta Ale has not one, but two such sites. The tectonic pattern on the surface of the lava lakes of the Erta Ale volcano is constantly changing. Here you can see both long-frozen areas of magma, forming a thin crust, and very fresh, easily destroyed islands. This process is accompanied by chaotic bursts of bright red molten lava and emissions of accumulated gas. According to the chemical composition of the Erta Ale magma, it is compared with deep-sea volcanoes located in the middle part mountain range at the bottom of the ocean. In both cases, a low content of silicic acid in the magma is observed.

IN last years The volcano has become more unpredictable. If in 2004 the lake in the crater of the volcano turned into a tectonic stronghold, remaining in this state for almost 20 months, then in November 2010 the volcano woke up with unexpected force. The eruption was accompanied by tremors, which significantly affected the state of the faults in the northeast. Scientists are closely monitoring changes in the volcano's activity, as it is located in an important seismic zone called the Afar Triangle. Noticeable plate shifts and an increase in the width of faults can significantly change geographical map our planet, in particular, affect the entire continent of Africa.

From year to year, steadfastly overcoming all the difficulties of a dangerous journey, about 500-1000 tourists and researchers reach the crater of the volcano. Being so close to the center of the volcano is incredibly difficult due to the high air temperature (about 50°C) and acidic fumes. Moreover, to get to the lava lakes in the crater of the volcano, you need to walk about 13 km.

Erta Ale Volcano - PHOTO

 

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