Burnin' Ring of Fire

      Of the "Four Elements" of Western antiquity -- earth, fire, air, and water -- I have always felt my temperament most matched fire: volatile, requiring utmost care and precaution in dealing with it, but valuable and even constructive if properly reined in and managed. Perhaps this is why I have for so long sought to understand the element after which I am modeled; why I have made a point of learning the arts and skills of firebuilding and firemaking; and also why the fires of nature so attract my attention.
      The "Ring of Fire" encircling the Pacific Ocean is only one of several such belts, but it is the one most everyone knows about, probably because it has such an evocative name. So, here are the steps of my ongoing pilgimage to the Ring of Fire....

Active Volcanoes I suppose it is best to begin with the most familiar feature of the Ring of Fire, volcanoes. And so the journey begins in 1996 in Costa Rica, in the Tilarán Mountains. There, high in the dripping cloud forest, I would periodically hear a noise like distant thunder -- only one peal, then silence, and no storm ever came. It was not thunder, but the burps and hiccups of Mt. Arenal, hidden in the dense clouds. This was my introduction to the Ring of Fire. At that time, I was a struggling undergrad student; the rumblings of the mountain were a backdrop to my biology studies, but I had neither the time nor the money to go see the mountain up close.

Active Lava Flows -- none as yet. The picture at the head of this page is from Angelfire's files

Lava Tubes and Dead Flows One of the most famous volcanic sites in the world must be Mt. Saint Helens, in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, U.S.A. The National Monument there is a showcase of volcanic phenomena, not just from the 1980 eruption, but from many eruptions going far back to the distant past. Among these is a complex of lava tubes known as the Ape Caves, on the south slope (not to be confused with Ape Canyon, on the southeast side and higher up). One can enter the Ape Caves from either the top or the bottom; I started at the bottom and worked upward. Once, these tubes would probably have been home to a unique cave fauna; but if so, it has long since disappeared due to the lights and footsteps of thousands of visitors. The roof had collapsed in many sections, creating heaps of rubble to climb; and somewhere inside one of those heaps are two batteries, which were knocked out of my camera when it bumped the rocks. If you are expecting the type of beautiful formations seen in limestone caves, you will be disappointed, for lava caves are simply tunnels of lava rock, reddish-gray and jagged. Nearby is the "Trail of Two Forests," where one can see the molded shapes of long-gone trees in the lava rock, with the living trees of the present coniferous rainforst growing on top. These are both old flows -- the 1980 eruption did not produce lava. Higher up is a very different sort of flow: Lahar is named after the term for the debris left by the mudflows. Nearly twenty years after the eruption, this area was still barren, and resembled an enormous gravel pit except that the pieces were larger.

Pele's Hair, and other Strange Rocks -- none as yet.

Hot Springs How can a pilgrimage to the Ring of Fire be complete without immersing oneself in it? And so we come to Taiwan, to the Wenshan Hot Springs in the eastern foothills of the Central Mountain Range. According to all I have read, this is the only hot spring in Taiwan which has not (yet?) had a luxury resort built over it. Fortunately, at that time Taroko National Park ran an internal shuttle bus service during major holidays; by riding this bus to its terminus at Tienhsiang, I had only a pleasant hike up the road to Wenshan, set amid the spectacular scenery of Taroko Gorge -- a canyon made entirely of natural marble, banded in black and white, with subtropical forest on the slopes. I descended to the riverbank, locating the hot springs by the presence of numerous Taiwanese in swimsuits. The soaking pool was inside a natural grotto, the only manmade alteration being the level stone shelf across the entrance, to keep the water level constant. At the back, the water percolated in through seemingly solid rock -- no discrete holes or fissures could be seen. There was a slight sulfuric smell about the grotto. The water temperature took some getting used to; at first, I felt as if I was about to turn into a hard-boiled egg, but within a couple of minutes, when I had acclimated, it was indeed heavenly, and I understood why the Taiwanese like it so much. Of course, for those who cannot get used to such temperatures, adjustments can be made: hot water also flows out from beneath the sand outside the grotto, and, by digging an array of pools and channels on the beach, people had created waters of various temperatures, mixing the hot springs water with varying amounts of the cold river water.

Mud Pots -- none as yet.

Geysers -- none in Ring of Fire as yet.

Fumaroles We now return to Taiwan, this time to the Yangmingshan (Shining Mountains), a National Park lying within the Taipei City Limits. I had just ascended Seven Stars Mountain, the highest peak in the vicinity, and saw the trail continue on down the other side. I followed it down, and found myself in a bare landscape of rolling hills, rocks, low-growing shrubs, and mat-forming plants. This was Hsiaoyoukeng (Small Oil Pits). I did not then know what was the attraction of this area, but soon found out, as I saw the first small steam jet billowing from a small rock outcrop. It was only a few steps off the trail, and by crouching down, I could see the little hole in the rock, outlined in bright yellow sulfur. I wanted to feel the steam directly; but an unhappy childhood episode involving a steam humidifier had taught me not to thrust my hand wantonly into steam jets. So, I reached out and put my hand in the diffuse part of the cloud, as far from the vent as I could reach, then gradually moved it in closer until I found the point of maximum safe tolerance. Intrigued and delighted, I contuniued on down the trail, seeing too many steam jets to count, of many different sizes. I did not know the flora of the area, but I could see different vegetation zones around the vents: barren ground or rock, then a broad circle of one kind of plant up to a certain distance, then different ones outside this. So it continued until I came upon a visitor center, where the climax was: a great basin of rock, with two huge columns of steam and uncounted smaller ones concentrated within it.

Acid Lakes -- none as yet.

Geothermal Energy -- none as yet.