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Comment by hugi | Hacker News Reader

I went for a hike there on Saturday night, here are a few of the shots I got:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeFBYeKa30w&list=PLoqbqfn2ku...

Unfortunately, photos and movies don't capture the atmosphere and sheer scale of the thing. What might look like some rocks rolling from the crater is cose to building-sized. Still, it's defined as a small eruption.

Edit: iCloud rate-limited the playlist I originally posted, so changed to YouTube playlist. Original link: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0OG6XBubGEA3MC

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I've never been anywhere near any volcano. If you don't mind - what does it smell like? Could you feel the heat from it? What was the sound like? If you don't have the time I understand but I'd love to hear what the experience was like to be that close.

Oh yes, you feel the warmth. The smell that immediately hit me was comforting, like you just lit a nice hardwood barbecue, probably from soil and plant material burning when coming into contact with the magma. The crater is loud and deeply rumbly and makes you feel the raw power of the Earth.

> The crater is loud and deeply rumbly and makes you feel the raw power of the Earth.

I'm using this in my next Zork clone ;)

Do it with Inform6 please :D

But don't you Icelanders find sulfuric smells – the same that much of the world associates with rotten eggs – kinda comforting, too, because since childhood such smells usually accompany hot bath water from the faucets? :)

Haha, well… I'm born and raised in the East fjords where there's little geothermal activity and geothermal heating is thus rare. When I first went to Reykjavik as a kid I nearly vomited when I was introduced with a bathtub full of that sulphuric liquid they called hot water :).

The first time I saw volcanic activity was in Rotorua[0], in New Zealand... I think the big volcano there is dormant but because it sits on top of a huge caldera, it still has plenty of volcanic activity, including boiling mud and geysers! It's an amazing place to visit. You can feel the warmth of the rocks and near the geyser, there are water ponds nearly as hot as boiling (incredibly clear water too). Seeing the geyser explode is the highlight of the visit, of course... But just seeing the boiling mud (which you can see everytwhere in town, basically) and hearing the noise of boiling liquid under your feet is an amazing feeling.

I was young and stayed in the local backpacker which had a naturally-warm water pool!

As you approach the city, you feel a very strong smell of sulphur (a smell described usually as rotten eggs), but as you stay in the town you more or less get used to the smell and stop feeling it... it's not as bad as it sounds.

Highly recommend a visit if you're around Australia or the South Pacific.

One day I want to visit Iceland as well, it looks amazing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotorua

You are probably aware since you visited, but Lake Taupo in the middle of the North Island is a collapsed volcano and has had a couple of eruptions are some of the largest on earth. There are Roman and Chinese records of weather events that may be due to Taupo eruptions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taupo_Volcano

I climbed Mt. Etna once (in Sicily). It wasn't erupting at the time but there were active lava flows etc. The scary thing was that even though conditions were relatively benign, a sudden change of wind direction blew a stream of sulphorous-smelling air in the direction of our group and we all had to run back down to the chair lift gasping for air.

The American author, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) wrote "The smell of sulfur is strong, but not unpleasant to a sinner.” after visiting Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano in his book "Roughing It".

Not been near a volcano, but Iceland also has a very sulphuric smell in general, like eggs almost. It is in everything like the air and the water.

If you've been to Iceland you've probably been near volcanoes, just not necessarily active ones. This volcano that is currently erupting is only about 10 miles from Keflavik Airport (and maybe 5 miles from the Blue Lagoon, if you went there).

Haha you would be right then. Only saw some geothermal vents and hot springs but yeah, there is a lot of earth activity going on there.

Definitely exercise caution when parading around Iceland: nobody is going to stop you from walking yourself into something hot/dangerous.

If your question wasn't specific to this volcano, but any volcano, the answer is that every one is different.

A few years ago, I visited the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua. It wasn't one you could get super close to, and the photos are a bit underwhelming, but it was still very impressive to see in person. This is what you can expect to see as a tourist: https://hotelplazacolon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Masay...

The heat coming off of the volcano was significant, but not exactly overwhelming. The sulfur smell was overwhelming (apparently Masaya emits a lot of sulfur dioxide), and there were restrictions as the length of time tourists could stay at the volcano due to the gasses. There were signs all over, posted in English and Spanish warning about the health effects of the gasses emitted.

I've been up one in Guatemala but the thing that I remember most was how popular lava is with hoardes of tourists

I'd add one anecdote: I went hiking on one of the Hawaiian volcanos a few years ago and got up close with some active (but extremely slow-moving) lava. Here's a pic of me poking it with a stick:

https://imgur.com/DuwuCg1

What amazed me was the absolute sheer about of heat generated from that one TINY little patch. Like, as intense as standing in front of a pizza oven going at full blast. I could stand about ~15 seconds of it once I exposed the molten part, and then I had to step away. Overall in the area it was warm - mostly because it was Hawaii and hot out! - but also because of general ambient warmth. But it was just that - warmth.

But when I exposed that piece of molten lava - that was HEAT.

I'm sure it was safer than it looked, but holy smokes, I'd worry so much about breaking through the crust there.

Me too! But we were with a local guide who walked out on the lava crust every day, so I kinda had to trust him.

Although the soles of my sneakers were semi-melted by the end of the day. I blame my sneakers more than anything (cheap, lowish melting point rubber), but still....

Apparently Apple has rate-limited this shared album. I got to see the stunning footage before it was cut off. If you get a chance to upload it to another source, please circle back with a link!

I didn't know they did that, thanks for the notification! Moved some of the videos to a YouTube playlist and updated the post.

Amazingly, when the iCloud page did start working for me, the videos wouldn't play and gave the message "This video cannot be played in this browser" - I'm using the latest Safari.

It almost looks like the hole is 2 meters in diameter and that you're standing right next to it. But then a person in red coat is really small. How big is the hole really?

I don't have exact measurements. But for some reference, here's a drone shot from the location. I'm the lone guy standing above the SAR team.

https://www.hugi.io/img/crater.jpg

I'd hate to own your life insurance policy :) Other than that great shots, please be very careful.

thanks, that image provides a nice scale

The Met office just released a statement where they said the walls of the main crater are currently about 30 meters tall (~100 feet). It's of course gained some height since Saturday.

holy smokes you're awfully close to the action :D

Whoa that is really close. Isn’t it common that lava will be ejected much farther than that? Or does this volcano have a particular known pattern already?

The flow is quite steady so magma isn't getting ejected very far. The more immediate danger it that the crater walls can collapse, spilling the ingredients in unexpected directions, or separate craters open up.

The caldera is 30m high

Awesome videos! Is it not dangerous to get that close? I got apprehensive just watching that

When I got back from the hike I heard on the radio that this location was, ahem, not recommended. It was closed off yesterday and a short while later the crater walls collapsed in that direction.

https://youtu.be/eeAf1kZ7_ZE

But there were a few of us at that spot at the time so at least I wouldn't have died alone :).

A bit on the macabre side (but your comments makes me believe you don't mind too much perhaps): what would happen if you'd fall or otherwise get trapped in lava? Gollum melted I think but that seems unlikely (it's a movie after all). Left for future archeologists like in Pompeii?

Please don't test on purpose or accident this btw.

it's 1200°C so you burn already before your body even hits the lava. During the Pompeji eruption people got killed by the hot ash (arriving first and travels further) which cooked them alive:

> The individuals in the boat houses died relatively quickly: The volcanic ash blocked the entrance to each structure, and the temperature of the air within probably rose to about 400°C—even hotter than a wood-fired oven. -- https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/studies-reveal-grues...

The lava is substantially denser than you, so you'd probably float on top and bake until you are dry and then burn.

The victims at Pompeii got buried in pyroclastic ash, not lava.

Ah, of course. Should have known. Still terrible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq7DDk8eLs8

I don't think much would be left of a person, but in central Oregon near Bend there's a park called the Lava Cast Forest, which is what it sounds like. About seven thousand years ago or so, there were some lava flows that engulfed live trees. The lava solidified, and what was left of the trees decomposed.

Now, what's left is a bunch of hollow tubes that are castings of the trees. You can still see the texture of the bark.

I assume this sort of thing exists in other lava flows around the world.

A trail around Mt St Helens (Trail of Two Forests, https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/trail-of-two-forests) has that kind of thing. There is a short tunnel you can crawl through - two trees were laying 90 degrees to each other overlapping when covered with lava. The entrance reminded me of a scene of a typical campy B horror movie (No! Don't go in that cave! The Monster is in there!) I wish I thought to scream to my wife when I crawled in (pretending the Monster got me) -- only thought of it later :-).

Your iCloud album is no longer available "due to high demand"

That is ridiculous... Oh, an actual demand for the sharing service? Let's shut it down temporarily until the demand passes. Have they never heard of caching?

The funny thing is that iCloud integration with Win 10 is excellent, and vastly superior Google’s product.

But then you have rate limiting and the fact that Apple doxes you when you share.

How do they dox their users in this case?

Click the link, you'll see who shared it. They are suggesting that Apple should have an option to withhold that info.

The only time I have tried it, this happened:

1) win file explorer, right-click file and choose Share with iCloud link (not at pc, am paraphrasing)

2) test link in private browser tab

3) see “this file shared by First Last”

My apologies if I am conflating the way this file was shared versus the way I had shared

Yeah, I’ve only ever shared with people who know my name anyway, but you’re right, that’s no good.

Don’t iCloud share with the internet, got it! Thanks.

They also dox your email address. Someone shared an iCloud album with wallpapers on Reddit once. When I viewed it on my iPhone, at the top, you can click to see who else is subscribed to that album. But you don't just see their full names. You also see their email address (iCloud, gmail etc) plus you can start FaceTime calls from there.

It's a very bad design.

Wow! I guess this is design when only thinking inside the walled garden? Even then...

Have some pity for the company sitting on $195 billion in cash, won’t you?

Apple and servers, a classic combination.

Apple’s handling of photos so badly needs some effort. Sharing libraries between family members just plain sucks. Why it managing photos so hard in their ecosystem?

Damn travel ban!!

I'd strike two things off my bucket list: visit Iceland, get up-close-n-personal with an active volcano. And quite possibly a third: seeing Northern Lights.

I spent a few days at Arenal in Costa Rica years ago and left without experiencing any volcanic activity.

"Your browser cannot play this video."

I'm running Chrome v89.0 on MacOS.

I think the video might be in H.265 format. Outside of Safari, no browser supports it, not even Chrome. https://caniuse.com/hevc

The video was probably originally in H.265 format and Apple apparently did no attempt at transcoding it to a format that's more widely understood like H.264.

Does not play in Safari, either :/

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