Where fire meets water - Stromboli 924 m above sea level

Hiking Stromboli active volacano was an experience of a lifetime, to climb this gorgeous mountain and arrive to its crater with ever lasting fire was breathtaking. Late afternoon we packed the backpacks with water, snacks, camera and headlamps and headed to the main square of Stromboli town to meet our guide and a group. The hike starts  around 5 pm, when the heat eases and a cooler breeze is a relief especially for this kind of activity. The trek to the crater takes around 3 hours in a very comfortable pace. The hike we did is marked in green on the map.The ascent is the zig-zag route and descent is very rapid through the ashes as soft as powder snow (the straight green line). We returned to the village around 11 pm at night, covered with ash and sweat but happy.

Beginnig of the hike and beautiful views of the island and Strombolicchio (the big rock in the middle of the sea) which is the remnant of the original volcano.

Half way up and Strombolicchio seen from the altitude approx. 500 m

As we climbed up we were treated to this gorgeous sunset.

 The lower crater during activity.

We stopped for a pause to admire the sunset, put on the helmets and prepare for the final 100 m

...and lucky us an explosion in the lower crater treated us to some fireworks.

 Last 100 meters with helmets on.

 As the night came we arrived to the summit and were welcomed by en expolsion of one of the craters (there are three active craters)

The Stromboli volcano is active since 2,000 years. It is monitored continously, there is a network of monitoring stations and instruments that collects the data then the data is sent to analyzing centers in Stromboli and around Italy. There are evacuations programs put in place as the volcano had two major eruptions in last ten years.  

This was the biggest eruption we witnessed from the central crater (above)

Imagine the power beneath...

* The trek was organized with Magmatrek and our Italian guide Franco was professional, knowledgable and accomodating to all fitness levels of the group

** Most of these great photos were taken by Marc-Olivier