Over the Shoulder

Return to el Teide (Part 1)

It has been a month since I returned from Tenerife, and el Teide, on what was my third visit. As I expected it to, visiting the arid caldera and the volcano provided me with a lot of inspiration. The landscape is so imposing that it calls to be photographed, and I was lucky enough to be able to summit el Teide on foot in time to see the dawn. The latter was an experience I won't soon forget.

In my shelves and on my floor at home I have scattered a cacaphony of photographs, unfinished essays on the volcano walk, shadows of sketches and scraps of stories. I think that there is potential for good writing in there - but, like seeing the volcano, my work definitely requires a revisit. Not that it will actually manage to encapsulate the scale and magnificence of the landscape!

My only finished piece so far is a three-part poem, inspired by a day spent rock-climbing in the Picos de Canada caldera. The background panorama was striking; but during the ascent, with your face pressed to the wall, the beauty of the background was lost in the fear of the moment. At the finish, though, the volcano appeared over the edge of the cliff - and cast a new brightness over the fright you just felt.

Part 1

Allow yourself to imagine this: a playground, bound in rock;
An easy, pleasing read between the lines - or a squeeze, and then a shock.
The playground now is heating up; how you wish you could downclimb
Off the reddened earth, plowed
By pressure and time.
And yet it stands unbowed
By the winds of change
Unlike you - don't allow yourself
That smooth slide off the iron bolt, that swing from an upper bough, No:
Vow to haggle with the untrammelled Earth
Plough it, pound the Fraggel Rock
Climb with power, reach around, send the route, stand your ground.

Part 2

The umbilical rope dangles below
Tethers you to your sister, your home
Let the belayer be laden with a certain doubt - 
Her voice flies loud and it lands flat.
She grows cold in the shade that throws a shallow scowl
A little while longer - and then a smile
Una sonrisa, as someone rises over the brow
Beyond the penultimate bolt
You step up and over the boulder rises - behold! -
The shoulders and head of a bolder Mt. Teide:
Beholden to no-one, beheld in its beauty anew
A magical view
For no-one but you; you know,
The winds of change blow kindly here
The breeze has slowed and stole the fear of flight
Into the great unknown - but wait!
There's still a flight of stairs to go
Down
You must climb; 
A line of dew upon your brow -
Does climbing make you happy now? - 
But listen: take a second, pass the time,
Hear the wind and see the line
Of silver, singed by sun, that writes
'el Teide' on the blue skyline
The hue of hope; and think again
Of when you took the rope and rose - 
and guess what? - you were fine.

Part 3

There's still a little way to go,
Down the straightened narrow line;
And yes your fear is burning bright 
Tigers clawing at your spine.
But you already did it! Ten minutes ago
Risking strife, and limbs entwined
And it was a breeze (to hashtag humblebrag)
So breathe - and go downclimb!

I've considered if this poem would work better spoken aloud.

Above: a view of me at the base of the climbing route that inspired the poem. el Teide is lit up in the background. The route was only graded 4+, but the rock and the surroundings made it feel more imposing!

On Returning to el Teide

It is almost three weeks until I return to Tenerife. During my first visit to the island, I spent a month completing an internship in geochemical monitoring and geothermal energy in association with GeoTenerife and INVOLCAN. This time, on my third trip, I will be on the island in a very different capacity: on holiday with my three siblings. I will be acting as tour guide, showing them around the island for a week. I imagine that with new company, the island will seem very different, and may be recast in my eyes into an adventure playground. However, there is one aspect that will remain unchanged: the volcano, el Teide, which we will summit on our last morning.

Eight months have gone by since I first climbed el Teide (incidentally the highest point in the Atlantic). Since then many things have happened. I have graduated from university, for one thing! I leave with a good degree and absolutely no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life. However, I know that passion is a powerful tool: and with my interest in volcanology, right here would be a great place to start.

When I achieved the top of Teide, I experienced a real moment of real lucidity. I can remember the summit cone in almost painful clarity: sulphurous clouds belching from steaming, crystal-sugared vents; the searing brightness of the pumiceous rock; the acidic blue that cloaked the valleys below. I am not sure how many people experience this feeling, the absolute certainty that this is what you could do each day for years; but as for myself, on October 1^st 2014, I knew that I wanted the study of volcanoes to be a large aspect of my life in the years to come.

Who knows where it will take me? So far I have planned placements in Ecuador and Mexico, but I hope that my studies will propel me to every hidden cauldron and forgotten vent around the globe. I know that competition for work is heated, and if secured a job is unlikely to be lucrative; but on the other hand, the pleasure of a large salary can’t match the feeling that I had on top of Teide last fall.

On another note, I can’t say thank you enough to the people behind GeoTenerife, who selected me from many candidates to intern on the island last September. I feel incredibly privileged to have experienced this kind of work before. I know that there is a new crowd of interns out there this June. I wish them the very best of luck, and hope that their time on the island sparks an interest as passionate as mine.

A snow-covered Teide in the early morning, taken from the col of the TF-436 towards Masca.

Why I want to monitor volcanoes

This post provides a brief insight into why I am interested in pursuing the study of volcanoes, or volcanology, as a career path.

If someone were to ask me, why do you want to study volcanoes?, I could give you a short answer or a long one. The short answer would make you laugh (hopefully!) and perhaps nod in agreement, but I think the longer answer is better. Such a career choice requires a longer examination of the deeper sources behind your passion.


For the short answer:

Volcanoes are badass!

They're light and heat, awe and fire; a reminder of the days when we were ruled by the pagan gods. They provide a natural spectacle far more amazing than any show on TV, including the auditions of the X Factor. Furthermore, I love that people's eyes light up when I tell them about volcanoes, because I have something that they can immediately relate to. We have all of us felt at some point in our lives awe at the natural world around us, at some phenomenon that we have witnessed, a moment that we know will never come again.

Volcanoes are both hot and cool. Superficially, I want to visit them so that I can toast a marshmallow on lava. The fact that the world's most active volcanoes are found in exotic and tantalising foreign countries doesn't hurt, either!


For the long answer:

In all seriousness, however, I chose volcanoes for deeper reasons. This I think is proved by my assertion that I would study an active volcano if it were located in Swindon. If you look beyond the awesome pictures of viscous and livid lavas, you'll find a cornucopia of reasons as to why volcanology is a fascinating and deeply engaging science. If you'll allow me to walk you through the reasons as to why I'm so interested, I think that at the end you will wish you studied volcanology too.

I came to study Earth Sciences at University College London in the fall of 2014. I think the degree appealed to me so much because I was so indecisive about my future. I knew that I enjoyed science, and I knew that I like to travel; that seemed to be the extent of my understanding. Geology provided an outlet for me to explore the world through fieldwork, and develop my interests in varied scientific disciplines ranging from geophysics to palaeontology.

I believe that the study of volcanology takes this approach one step further. Of course it has a narrower focus than Earth Sciences in general; but there are so many areas within it that it seems mean to call it a specialisation. If you are working with the active earth, where can't your skills be put to use? Measuring gas flux from the crater? - a sound understanding of chemistry will work wonders. Monitoring car breaks down? - a mind geared towards mechanical engineering will help. Need to talk to the locals about potential hazards? - languages are invaluable.

Following on from that last point, another thing which attracted me to volcanology is the active and engaged position that you can take with the public. How often in your day-to-day life do you think about the water you drink or the gas in your car being due, in part, to the efforts of geologists? But with volcanic risk, the benefits of scientific communication are far more immediately observed. Take the disasters of Nevado del Ruiz (1985) and LÁquila (2009) as examples: when the Earth trembles, people look to the scientists. I want to be able to inform the understanding of many people when they wonder why a volcano is dangerous. It's that lighting up in people's eyes that I want to achieve, as I know that mine must have done when I first learned about volcanic processes a couple of years ago. I have been given so much from my degree; now I believe it is time to give things back.

A day at the summit of Teide

We take the cable car up the volcano. As we rise, the slopes below us sprawl into blackened, frozen thunder. ‘Papi Teide’, as the locals know him, is the legendary demon that lives under the mountain of el Teide in Tenerife. He appears to have been cooking: made a delicious stew of molten rock, and in a temper upended it everywhere. The colours show the ingredients that he used: here a sun-dried and rubbled ochre lava flow, there a piquant sprinkle of scoria, over there a smooth lick of obsidian. Everywhere the melange is garnished with vegetation that crackles in the polished blue bowl of the caldera.

In ten minutes we reach the cable car’s exit, and the air is noticeably thinner. We wheeze like smokers up the last two hundred metres towards the summit. Natural levees of petrified rock direct our route at every turn. They hint of the awesome power of past eruptions, when Teide overflowed its top and lava ran down its sides to form these banks and flows. Our journey is otherworldly, surreal; in this land of legends I feel as though I could be struck down by lightning, or petrified in salt from the errant volcano.

Inside the crater it’s quite fantastic. As we zig-zag across the surface, a landscape of chemical foliage blooms under our feet. Puckered whorls of carbonates frost the ground in spirals and loops. Fist-sized vents can be seen here and there, the entrance into the underworld, and each opening is kissed by splinters of acid-yellow sulphur needles that glint under the sunlight; a sun that spins in the spotless blue bowl like a golden coin. We are at the highest point in the Atlantic, and the stars feel closer here.

Perhaps you would expect an active volcano to feel more alive: despite the otherworldly shapes there is no lava. But the mountain is still restless. I sit back against one of the walls (coloured a curious shade of pink; the colour of a baby’s cheek, unblemished) and spring up: it’s like sitting on a radiator. People laugh – that’s the volcano! 5 kilometres below us, a room of molten rock churns. If you look around, the steam rising in curlicues and cidillas from the vents whisper the secret of the magma chamber.

We rest in a shadow in the southern wall, backs warmed from the geothermal heat. A buzzing rises on the breeze. The noise drones on, and rises in pitch. What is it - have we awoken Papi Teide? But no: above us, in the sun, a few ink dots hum and flitter. These are bees that live by the crater. They are endemic to Teide and come for the heat that rises from the deep. They call this place home. Unbelievable!

Later, Davíd regales us with tales of his travels. He’s been to 15 of the 17 Decade Volcanoes. I ask him what his favourite one was, and he recalls the roiling lava lake at Nyiragongo. This is my first and, honestly, I can’t imagine another surpassing it.