Volcanic · Field Notes

Places in this lens

Select a place to open its note.

Arenal Volcano

Arenal Volcano · Alajuela, Costa Rica 7 sites

Stand at any of the viewpoints ringing Arenal and the mountain stops behaving like scenery.
Bromo-Tengger-Semeru

Bromo-Tengger-Semeru · East Java, Indonesia 7 sites

Stand on the rim before sunrise and the ground ahead looks like a dry lakebed circled by mountains — flat, grey, and strange for a place this high in…
Crater Lake

Crater Lake National Park · Oregon, USA 5 sites

Crater Lake begins with a mountain that is no longer there.
Also seen through Night Sky
Craters of the Moon

Craters of the Moon National Monument · Idaho, USA 5 sites

Craters of the Moon looks less like a mountain range than a fresh skin stretched over the Snake River Plain.
Also seen through Night Sky
Etna

Parco dell'Etna · Sicily, Italy 7 sites

Most mountains are finished.
Haleakalā

Haleakalā Visitor Center · Hawaii, USA 5 sites

Three-quarters of the island under your boots is the work of one volcano, and it is the one you are standing on.
Also seen through Night Sky
Hallasan

Hallasan · Jeju, South Korea 7 sites

From a plane, Jeju looks deceptively gentle—rounded green hills scattered across a wide plain, more pasture than volcano.
Katmai

Brooks Camp · Alaska, USA 5 sites

Over three days in June of 1912, the ground here opened and remade itself.
Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro · Kilimanjaro, Tanzania 6 sites

Kilimanjaro looks finished from a distance — a single snow-capped dome rising clean out of the plain, the kind of shape that reads as permanent.
La Palma

Carretera Roque de Los Muchachos · Canary Islands, Spain 5 sites

Stand on the rim of the Caldera de Taburiente and look down: you are looking into the cut-away anatomy of a mountain that has not finished building it…
Also seen through Night Sky
Lanzarote

Parque Nacional de Timanfaya · Canary Islands, Spain 8 sites

Over six years in the 1730s, eruptions buried farms, wells, and whole hamlets under lava and cinder, and a last burst of fire came about a century lat…
Also seen through Desert & Deep Time
Lassen

Lassen Volcanic National Park · California, USA 8 sites

Walk a few miles into the middle of this park and the ground begins to breathe.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons
Mauna Kea

Mauna Kea Access Road · Hawaii, USA 7 sites

The road up Mauna Kea crosses a line you can actually see.
Also seen through Night Sky
Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji · Honshū, Japan 6 sites

Walk into the forest west of the lake and the ground stops behaving like ordinary ground.
Mount Rainier

Mount Rainier National Park · Washington, USA 8 sites

Stand at almost any overlook here and you are looking at some of the youngest rock in this landscape — and it is still not finished.
Also seen through Ice & Glaciers
Mount St. Helens

Mount Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument · Washington, USA 8 sites

At 8:32 on the morning of May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted with a force this country had not seen in living memory — the most disastrous volcani…
Pinnacles

Pinnacles National Park · California, USA 8 sites

The crags here are half a volcano.
Also seen through Desert & Deep Time
Reykjanes

Reykjanesskagi · Iceland 9 sites

The great crack that runs down the floor of the Atlantic, where two of the planet's plates pull slowly apart, does not stay underwater the whole way.
Also seen through Fog Coast
Sunset Crater

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument · Arizona, USA 5 sites

At Sunset Crater, the volcanic story is close enough to touch with your eyes.
Teide

Parque Nacional del Teide · Canary Islands, Spain 5 sites

Teide is a landscape of volcanic layers exposed above the clouds.
Also seen through Night Sky
The Antigua Volcanoes

The Antigua Volcanoes · Sacatepéquez, Guatemala 8 sites

Stand in this valley and start counting peaks — you will lose track well before you run out of named ones.
The Big Island

Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park · Hawaii, USA 10 sites

Stand on almost any black rock in this park and you are standing on ground younger than the oldest person you know.
Vatnajökull

Skaftafell · Iceland 5 sites

Most waterfalls are sculptors: patient, slow, wearing stone down over spans of time longer than any visit.
Also seen through Ice & Glaciers
Vesuvius

Vesuvio · Campania, Italy 5 sites

The mountain you climb here is not the mountain that once stood here.
Yellowstone

Upper Geyser Basin · Wyoming–Montana–Idaho, USA 5 sites

Yellowstone hides much of its volcano underground.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons