Hiking Mt. Etna #2

L3 Troy took us on his favorite Etna hike.  We had hoped for clear weather.  The mountain was visible early in the morning, but by 10, it was shrouded once more.  We parked about a mile past where the ski resort parking lots are and went up from there.  It was chilly, but we were working hard so the layers went on and off a few times.  But the the surface that we were hiking on proved the most interesting and tricky.

We started climbing up, and up, and up.  It was rather normal at first with actual dirt and trees, but that soon gave way to lava rocks and evil "plants".  They don't look bad from the distance.  They are small and grow over mounds of lava and are essentially living pin cushions, with the pins pointing out.  We all got pricked at least once and it always brought the girls to tears.  They are so sharp!  There were long stretches of finding the way around the maze of evil plants while climbing up.  It looked so much like we were on our way to Mordor.  About an hour or so into the hike the rocks got finer and finer and we found ourselves trying to scramble up spots of fine black sand that collapsed under our weight.  

We eventually made it over one ridge and then had the tiring task of walking along the face of the mountain.  We stopped every so often to empty out a cup of black sand from each of our shoes.  I kept wishing my right leg was 6 inches shorter than my left as we trudged along.  We were making our way to the highlight---racing down the black powder, going so fast that you sometimes end up head over heels.  

Emptying shoes one more time before running down. 

Jess make an ash angel.

I went up a bit to take a picture of us about to go down.  

I don't have pictures of the trek down, but it was so fun, as promised.  Jess was especially gung-ho.  The plan was for her to follow Troy and not get lost, but she hated stopping and would leap ahead.  I tried to keep up with her and get her to stop and wait for the rest of the group.  Isaac had a few spectacular falls.  You have to run landing on your heels feet flexed and leaning back so you so sink back instead of fall forward.  Once you get the hang of it, you can really fly down.  Matt stayed with Makenna who was feeling worn out and not inclined to charge down.  The whole hike took us about 5 hours.  The way down was less than an hour.  When we got back to the parking lot, we sampled our first Italian hot chocolate.  yummmmmmmmmmm.  The most unique hike ever.