The Beauty of Nyiragongo
May 28, 2010
Written by Peter Clay, Senior Advisor to GACP
Our guide Innocent of Green Hills Eco-tours met us at our project office in the Rwanda city of Gisenyi shortly after 8 AM. The transit across the border to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was uneventful. The entry visa was $35 per person. We drove through the DRC city of Goma toward Nyiragongo, an active volcano whose ominous glow can be seen throughout northwestern Rwanda. The chaotic energy of Goma is in sharp contrast to serene Gisenyi. You have the sense that anything you want is available for the right price in Goma, unlike today’s Rwanda, where even smoking in public is now forbidden.
The battered old metal bullet hole-ridden sign at the trailhead of Nyiragongo said Albert National Park, although it is now officially Virunga National Park. We had pre-paid the $200 park entry fee, and now we hired seven porters at $24 for the two-day hike. We were told that 25 or 30 soldiers were invisible but nearby, keeping watch for us and making sure we would arrive unmolested by rebels. We were also told that this southern area of the park was quite safe at the moment, whatever that really means in the ongoing tumult and tragedy in DRC. Loose cinders made for poor footing initially, and I worried about twisting an ankle.
The climb to the crater’s rim would take us about 4 ½ hours. After about an hour we passed a spot where steam and vapors emerged from openings in the earth. The climb grew steeper as we passed some subsidiary craters, leveled out a bit and then steepened again for the final push to the top. After 3 ½ hours Innocent offered to take my daypack. I was stopping every five minutes or so to rest and it had become obvious that I needed some help at that point. My pride was injured but I understood. However the footing – good volcanic rock - was fine. There was no mud anywhere on the climb, a huge difference from the ascent of other, dormant volcanoes in the Virungas.
I was stunned by the view from the rim of the vast crater. There were at least two sub-levels within. In the very center was a red lake of boiling lava, with plumes of toxic vapors streaming skyward. A perfect circle of perhaps 300 meters across, this “lake” was bounded by a “fence” or wall that must be some sort of artifact of the ongoing volcanic activity. I found it hard to take my eyes away from this endlessly changing spectacle. Sometimes it was quiescent, and the surface darkened temporarily as the lava cooled, irregular lines defining blocks of cooling rock like a jigsaw puzzle with moving pieces. Then it would start to boil again, the surface rolling while molten rock shot into the air like chaotic breaking waves on the sea.
I stayed up until past 10 PM, hypnotized by Nyiragongo with her lava lake. Innocent was attentive and helpful. He was also clearly concerned that none of us fall into the crater as had happened to one visitor back in 2007. She apparently had tried to climb down a ways and had fallen to the first shelf, where she died of fumes and perhaps injuries sustained in her fall. While I wanted to get as close to the edge as practical, I had no desire to push the limits here. The viewing at night was fantastic, in a literal sense. With clear skies and a full moon rising above the sharp edges of the crater rim, the red circle of boiling lava provided an unparalleled show. Sometimes the turbulence would result in a “breach” of the “fence” or wall defining the boundaries of the lake. Once a huge river of lava poured over the wall. Viewed through binoculars it appeared like a red-orange stream with irregular chunks of semi-cooled rock tossed about like driftwood as the liquid flowed over the edge. It reminded me of watching a waterfall or a whitewater river, but with a dramatic difference.
Innocent introduced a Congolese volcanologist stationed at the permanent research tent on Nyiragongo’s summit. We visited for nearly an hour, and he shared how they study the volcano and can predict from which fissures in the surrounding landscape the next flow of lava may emerge, with even a week or two’s notice. In 2002 the lava came out of the ground miles away from the volcano, right in Goma itself. The river of lava flowed into Lake Kivu but relatively little of the lava actually ended up in the lake, which was a real plus. If enough of the molten rock had gone into the lake it could have triggered a catastrophic upwelling of methane and killed tens of thousands of people instantly. That could still happen anytime, even without lava flowing into the lake. Simple earthquakes near or under the lake could produce the same dire outcome. That will be something to think about when I go to sleep tomorrow night in Gisenyi.
