The Volcano

Lily peering over the volcano cliff - there's a lava lake down there but it didn't photograph well.

A fumerole and the volcano.

Looking back at the scientists setting up
equipment from along the crater rim
(at the very top of the picture).

We got a bluebird day where the humidity was such that there was almost no plume coming from the volcano.  According to the smart science guys, the amount of gas coming out of the volcano is pretty constant but the gas cloud size depends on humidity.  Who knew?

Aaron and his giant pack.  It doesn't
look it but that trail is steep and the
elevation made me breathless.

On the crater rim.

The best day all season according to Tim the mountaineer.  So we took snowmobiles up until the snow was gone and then hiked 25 minutes up to the crater rim.  It's not far but the elevation and the cold winds make it a hard 25 minutes.

Zoe heading downhill toward Fang camp.

Mount Erebus has a constant lava lake that churns in the bottom of the crater.  I got a couple of peeks at the bottom that seemed to suggest some red lava but it was hard to tell.  The summit crater is almost a mile wide and about 400 feet deep and the edges of the crater drop almost straight down to where the lava lake sits.  There are times when the volcano shoots out volcanic bombs (large chunks of semi-hardened lava) and many of these were littered around the summit.  Some of them are bigger than cars.  I was really hoping to see some of this but the volcano was calm the entire time I was on the mountain.  Maybe I've already had enough excitement on this mountain.

Tim (the mountaineer) and some cool geology on a moody day.