That time I climbed a volcano and what I learned from it

medium.com

12 points·earnestsweat··3 comments

Here's one i highly recommend: Mt Tiede (~ 3,500m) in Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, which makes it a good trivia question since it's technically the highest peak in Spain (which i would have guessed is in the Sierra Nevadas or the Pyrenees to the East).

Tenerife is easier to get to than you might think, it's about a 3.5 hr flight from London, and among that city's airports (Luton, Gatwick, Heathrow, et al) dozens of flights to Tenerife each day.

According to the Lonely Planet guide, Mt Tiede is the real deal--an active volcano that last erupted near the start of WW I. There is a very high fence around the caldera. The can walk to the summit via a well-worn switchback (zig-zag) path that's never very steep. It took us all morning, starting at dawn; we never saw another person, then at the summit, a large crowd of tourists standing around, freezing waiting for the next cable car to take them back down. You can see from the summit eg, Grand Canaria.

Very cool learning experience! For those of you who are into hiking volcanoes, I'd highly recommend the Tongariro Alpine Crossing in New Zealand (http://www.tongarirocrossing.org.nz/tongariro-alpine-crossin...). It was one of the best experiences of my life.

I'm not often near volcanoes nor enough of a hiker to seek them out but while in Bali for a few weeks, I did a sunrise hike of Mt. Batur. That's less than half the height of the one in the linked essay but it was still somewhat challenging for my somewhat out-of-shape body (not something I couldn't handle by any means but definitely wore me out). Getting to the top by sunrise was really impressive and I'm really glad I had the chance to hike it.

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