Inside the Volcano – Part 2/2

Continued from Part 1.

Surrounding scape from top of the peak
5D Mark III, TS-E 24L II

The elevator platform looked well-engineered and deploys the safety braking mechanism found in all cable elevators. (Thank you, Elisha Otis.) Sound safety procedures were followed including securing us to the platform via the harness.

Transport: elevator platform
5D Mark III, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

The first batch of four was gently lowered into the crater, the descent to the floor 120 metres below taking around 10 minutes. On the way down it got very dark very quickly, and this combined with platform shake was not conducive to still photography.

Crater wall during descent (ISO 3200)
5D Mark III, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

On the floor of the magma chamber I quickly put my tripod to work. These colours are the handiwork of Nature, not the Photoshop Saturation slider.

Chamber wall
5D Mark III, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Phantoms
5D Mark III, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Crater funnel seen from the floor
5D Mark III, TS-E 17L

Wide angle view of the chamber walls
5D Mark III, TS-E 17L

We spent around 45 minutes on the floor of the chamber. Back at the base station we were offered coffee and a light meal with a choice of traditional Icelandic lamb soup (Kjötsúpa) and a hot vegetarian item that was inscrutable but delicious nevertheless.

Hot and delicious vegetarian something
5D Mark III, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP

Before our trek back I chanced upon Árni Stefánsson, the man behind the Inside the Volcano enterprise. “This is a world heritage site,” he intoned. I wanted to tell him that the whole of Iceland (minus the unsightly jumble that is Reykjavík) is a world heritage site.

“This is a world heritage site” – Árni Stefánsson, the prime mover behind the project
5D Mark III, Zeiss ZE 50 f/2 MP