Iceland’s hottest tourist attraction: a live volcanic eruption

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After three-days beseeching Njord, the Norse god of wind, to cease his mischief, last Monday afternoon I finally found myself striding across basalt and burnt moss towards Iceland’s newest volcano eruption.

Drawing me forward was a pinkish halo in the sky, its light silhouetting the smooth surrounding hills created by eruptions past. Maybe a thousand people were on the trail. I saw cyclists on fat-tyred bikes, small children, a guy on crutches, and two besuited Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The fissure at a hill known as Litli-Hrútur (Little Ram) began spewing lava on July 10. Within 24 hours, Icelandic authorities had opened a footpath on which tourists could trek to see the eruption.

“If you tell people they cannot go they’ll find a way to sneak in and get into trouble,” says Sigridur Dögg Gudmundsdóttir, head of Visit Iceland. Early reports from Litli-Hrútur told of people clambering over barely solidified lava. “We never advertise eruptions, but needed a safe route,” she says.

The demand is unquestionable. Icelandic tour-operators were offering guided hikes almost immediately. The UK-based operator Discover the World, a specialist in the region, rushed to launch a three-day volcano tour. “We were receiving calls by July 11 and taking bookings within 24 hours,” says Clive Stacey, its founder. The new eruption is part of the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system on the Reykjanes Peninsula, only 20km from Iceland’s main airport and 30km from the capital Reykjavík; when it spewed lava sporadically for six months in 2021, an estimated 350,000 came to watch.

As a former geology student, I’ve travelled to see erupting volcanoes all over the world: from Mount Merapi in Indonesia exhaling cigar rings of ash to the recent La Palma explosion, which obliterated holiday villas. When news of Litli-Hrútur broke, I rushed to jump on a plane, only to arrive to find the new path had been closed almost as quickly as it had been opened. High winds were blowing smoke from burning moss, ignited by the new lava, towards the route of the path.

“It’s been unbearable knowing the eruption could end any time,” said Jeroen van Nieuwenhove, my guide and a professional photographer of erupting volcanoes. After three frustrating days, the trail reopened the afternoon before my flight home. Jeroen and I rushed to the start of the trailhead, where a farmer’s field at Suðurstrandarvegur had been turned into an impromptu car park for hundreds of vehicles.

I saw somebody taking a selfie extremely close to the cone narrowly missed by a lava bomb

The wildfires had been doused but the blackened lava hills remained acrid with lingering smoke. Jeroen pointed out where the solidifying lava from the current eruption has already flowed several kilometres. It’s a flat walk in, although long, at 16km return.

Are volcanoes too dangerous to be tourist attractions? Professor Thorvaldur Thordarson, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland, suggests it can be done responsibly. “Upwind of the plume is pretty safe until you reach the vent,” he says. Government statistics from 2021’s eruption note 0.1 per cent of visitors had accidents, mainly tumbles on the steep hike in. “Trouble occurs when people act irresponsibly. I saw somebody taking a selfie extremely close to the cone narrowly missed by a lava bomb.”

Litli-Hrútur’s fissure initially released multiple high-pressure jets of lava but quickly the output of magma lessened, and the eruption’s energy was focused on a single fast-expanding cone.

The closer we get to the volanco, the more the lava party gets into full swing. Crowds throng to the front of the creeping lava flow. Search-and-rescue crews in hi-viz jackets politely urge them back. The guy on crutches finally arrives.

I meet Belgians Aris and Frederika, celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary at the volcano. “We booked flights an hour after the eruption started. We didn’t want to miss maybe a once-in a lifetime experience,” says Frederika. “When we saw the volcano, we burst into tears.”

The scene is reminiscent of a Instagram session in Mordor. Dust devils whip up crumbling soils. The cold evening air clashes with wafts of heat from the molten rock. Moving lava splinters audibly like shattering glass, and reveals glowing viscous lava pockets that intensify as darkness falls around midnight. A couple toast marshmallows on sticks indecently close.

“To think some people were climbing on this new stuff . . . ” wonders Jeroen, looking at the lava. “The emergency responders here say you will be cremated and buried in one spot if you fall through it.” He suspects initial reckless behaviour played a part in the path’s temporary closure, to allow the authorities to regroup and plan for visitor demand.

The slight disappointment is that we are not allowed within 1.5km of the cone itself. “The wind is blowing the gas plume towards the trail,” says an emergency-responder. “The sulphur-dioxide or monoxide could overwhelm people getting too close.”

The new cone is about 25m high; its pink-tinted smoke plume merges with the clouds. Although we can’t go closer, Jeroen launches his drone photography and sends one towards the inferno. I’m usually irritated by these whining contraptions but now thankful for the close up view. Inside the expanding cone, two lava fountains create a contorting, twisting firestorm. We then track the outflow of lava oozing downslope, bright orange and weirdly smooth-looking.

It’s a spectacle to melt the heart of any volcanologist. “I’m still mesmerised,” Thordarson tells me. “No matter how many times I see this, I just sit there and watch and forget to do some science.”

For me, getting close to volcanoes is not about a risk-taker’s adrenalin rush (I would never bungee jump) but a sense of something more profound. “You’re looking at creation,” agrees Thordarson. “The crust makes Earth a habitable place. Volcanoes maintain our atmosphere and are a reason why we have life on Earth.”

He’s unsure how long this current eruption will continue. “Geophysicists measuring a widespread uplift on the Reykjanes Peninsula suggest a large accumulation of magma below the surface. We could be seeing eruptions [here for hundreds of years.”

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