MOUNT ETNA. SPRING 1950

By J. V. F. Rusher

At the base of Mount Etna lies the town of Catania, not a beautiful city, since it appears to have been deluged by lava and pumice at various stages of its history. At six o’clock one April morning I waited in the town’s grey streets for the bus to take me up the mountain. It was a pleasant cool morning and although I felt hungry, Italy not being famous for its breakfasts, I was ready to tackle the 10,742 feet to the crater’s brink. The bus roared at full speed, as Italian buses always do, through the narrow black-brown lava-walled streets of the villages cuddling close under the shadow of the mountain and its rich sulphurous soil.

As we ascended, the fertile green vineyards gave place to vast screes of black ugly lava, which looked as if they had arrived only the day before, for the vines were growing right up to their very edge. Over all towered the supremacy of Mount Etna, its plume of smoke billowing from the snow-covered summit, token of the mighty powers of destruction lying quiescent within. On alighting into the brittle mountain air I found that I had as a companion an English school teacher, Miss Luscombe, who fortunately spoke Italian, a. language of which I had no word.

Having breakfasted at the hotel a few hundred feet below, we met the guide, and set off on the 3,000 foot climb to the summit. The first 1,000 feet were easy though very dusty, a steady gentle slope. The mounting sun became increasingly warm on our backs, it reflected from the dry brown rocks and made climbing unpleasant.

We were soon up to the snow line, where in ancient days the nobles would collect the snow to cool their wine. The view down the mountain was quite superb. To the left lay the calm blue Mediterranean with its border of white sand. Below, Catania, that grey city with its straight streets cutting swathes through the tall buildings. Then away in the distance across the bright green broad Catanian Plain lay the brown hills of central Sicily. At the mountain’s foot clustered those advent­ urous villages so near to molten death. The many eruptions of the mountain’s history could be traced by the black streams of broken lava jutting into the verdant vineyards and olive groves.

The snow was very soft and grew softer as the day wore on. At times we plodded through it ankle deep, at others we sank to our knees. We were soon past the half-way hut where we saw a few large black birds. From this point the climb gradually grew steeper, the drifts deeper and our damp feet colder. The sun was dazzlingly bright, sparkling off the white snow. Below lay the shoulder of Monte Rosa, its red flanks dropping sheer to Taormina. After three hours’ climbing we came to the Observatory, 1,000 feet beneath the summit. The place is uninhabited, but near at hand are instruments for measuring the mountain’s eruptions.

After a quick lunch of sandwiches and wine we pushed on. The climb grew more severe. We passed beneath the crater of a recent eruption still steaming hot, which made a gasping, groaning sound as we went by. Then came the last 50 feet scramble up the cone to the mountain top.

We stood on the rim, 50 feet above the crater’s floor, momentarily clouded in the sulphurous smoke from its interior. What to me seemed extraordinary was the sight of snow, lying within yards of boiling steam issuing from some fissure. The crater gave one but little idea of the mighty force latent beneath ; a force which through the ages has built a mountain 10,700 feet high and which affects the lives of half a million people working on its sides. From this sinister cup, looking like a giant cauldron ready for the boil, flowed last winter a stream of lava which wrecked two villages and did untold damage to the vineyards.

From here we could see, across the Straits of Messina, the Italian mainland, with its stark mountains stretching away to the horizon. We could look along the northern coast as well, and, in the distance, Stromboli standing grandly sheer from the sea. To the west was a deep blue-grey valley with many red-roofed villages. In the heat haze to the south, across the plain, we could just see, on the coast, the white walls of Augusta.

The scene was a riot of colour, the blue sky, with the dark blue sea shading to a lighter blue, bordered by the white beach ; and the green, green valleys mounting through dark grey-blue to the brown hills above. All around lay the white snow, contrasting oddly with the black, red, yellow and brown lava shimmering under the hot sun.