A Wild Place

摘要

A biting wind pummels my body as I brace myself on the crater rim of Mt. Erebus, Antarctica's most active volcano. Just a few minutes'exposure to the minus-30-degree Fahrenheit air earns my climbing partner a frostbitten nose. Safely swaddled beneath a facemask, my own nose sniffs the acrid sulfur wafting from the lava lake smoking and heaving in the caldera 300 feet below. The molten lake has burped out rocks the size of automobiles, and we've been warned not to duck if we hear an explosion. Instead, we should look up and try to dodge the volcanic bombs. I'm thankful that today the mountain is quiet. Just below us on the volcano's flank, white mist rises from three-story-high towers shaped like upended ice-cream cones. Climbing into a steaming hole in the side of one, I enter an underground world of sparkling ice. Hexagonal crystals cover the walls of solidified lava, reflecting points of light from my headlamp like constellations in the night sky. I stop, stunned, when I see a perfect human handprint melted into the frozen wall. In a gesture as old as humanity, I sear my own handprint into the ice to say I was here too.