If you’ve had the chance to read Jurassic Park (or, fine, seen the movie), you can easily picture the kind of terrain that was around before humans were on earth. If you can’t recall that image so easily, just make a trip to the Philippines and hike up Mt. Pinatubo, a volcano that last erupted on June 15, 1991.
I actually learned about the eruption last fall when I interviewed Jim Thornton, who is in the Navy Reserve and helped people in the surrounding area escape. He sort of looked at me in awe that I hadn’t heard of it before he mentioned it. It was the second-largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century, producing high-speed avalanches of hot ash and gas, mudflows and a cloud of volcanic ash.
It is called Mt. Pinatubo because most people didn’t know it was a volcano, our guide told us. He was also in the town just outside of Pinatubo when it erupted. It was midday, and the whole sky went dark, “like it was night,” he said. The next day, “it was raining sand.”
More than two decades later, this area is now a destination for hikers to spend a day climbing over rocks and creeks to a crater that is now filled with water. Different companies in the area offer trips, taking guests up in a beaten-up Jeep before making the two-hour hike to the crater.
If you’re making a trip to the island of Luzon in the Philippines (that’s where Manila is), then make the day trip up to Angeles, Clark or Tarlac, spend the night, then dedicate a day to making this trek up Mt. Pinatubo. The scenery will make flying around the world then sitting in traffic worth it.
Photo by Amy McCarthy
This Side of the World 