Chapter 11We Reach Mount Sneffels. The "reykir"

Stapi is a town with thirty huts, built on a huge lava plain, totally exposed to the sun - it's reflecting off the volcano. The little houses stretch out along a small fjord, surrounded by a basalt wall that’s seriously unique.

Basalt is a brown rock, formed from volcanic stuff. It takes on really regular shapes, which are wild to look at. Here, Nature was going geometric, working like a human - like she used a plumb line, a compass, and a ruler.

Other times, she makes huge, artistic messes without any order - you see weird cones, messed-up pyramids, and crazy lines. But here, she was trying to teach a lesson in regularity, like she beat the architects of ancient times.

She built a super-strict order of architecture, something neither Babylon nor Greece ever topped.

I'd heard about the Giant's Causeway in Ireland and Fingal's Cave in the Hebrides, but I'd never seen a real basalt formation up close.

What we saw at Stapi really gave us a feel for how amazing and beautiful it could be.

The wall of the fjord, like almost the whole peninsula, was made of a bunch of vertical columns, about thirty feet tall. These perfect stone pillars supported a roof of horizontal columns, kind of like a half-vaulted ceiling over the sea.

Every so often, below this natural basin, we saw oval openings where waves crashed in, sending up sprays of foam.

Some banks of basalt, ripped away by the waves, were scattered around like the ruins of an ancient temple - ruins that always look new, even though storms have been raging over them for ages!

This was the final stretch of our trip. Hans had guided us faithfully and smartly, and I started to feel a bit more chill when I thought he's still coming with us.

When we stopped in front of the Rector's house - a tiny, cramped place, not cute or comfy like his neighbors’ - I saw a dude shoeing a horse, hammer in hand, leather apron tied around his waist.

"Be happy," said the eider-down hunter, using his national greeting in his own language.

"God dag - good day!" replied the other, speaking perfect Danish.

"Kyrkoherde," said Hans, turning around and introducing him to my uncle.

"The Rector," repeated the Professor; "looks like this good man is the Rector, and isn't afraid to get his hands dirty."

While they were talking, the guide told the Kyrkoherde what was going on. The good man stopped what he was doing and let out a yell, and a super tall woman, almost a giantess, came out of the hut. She was at least six feet tall, which is saying something around there.

My first thought was total freakout. I thought she was coming to give us the Icelandic kiss. But I didn't have anything to worry about, because she didn't even seem that into welcoming us into her house.

The guest room was seriously the worst part of the presbytery. It was small, gross, and just plain off-putting. But we didn't really have a choice. The Rector wasn't about that usual warm and old-school hospitality thing. Not at all.

Before the day was even over, I realized we were dealing with a blacksmith, a fisherman, a hunter, a carpenter - anything but a clergyman. Gotta give him credit though, we caught him on a weekday; he probably looked better on Sundays.

These poor priests get a seriously lame salary from the Danish government, and they collect just one-fourth of the tithe from their parish - not even sixty marks current, like, about L3 10s sterling. So they have to work to live, you know?

Honestly, we quickly realized our host wasn't big on being polite.

My uncle pretty much figured out the kind of guy he was dealing with. Instead of a smart, learned scholar, he found a boring, rude peasant. So, he decided to kick off his big expedition ASAP. He wasn’t worried about being tired, and he planned to spend a few days in the mountains.

We got everything ready to leave the very next day after we arrived at Stapi. Hans hired three Icelanders to replace the horses - they just couldn’t carry our luggage anymore. But when these awesome islanders got to the bottom of the crater, they were supposed to head back and leave us on our own.

That was the deal before they’d even agree to start.

This time, my uncle kinda spilled the beans to Hans, the eider-duck hunter, and let him know he planned to keep exploring the volcano as far as possible.

Hans listened coolly, then just nodded. Going there, or anywhere else, to bury himself in the earth’s core, or hike over its peaks - it was all the same to him! As for me, I was having a blast with the travel stuff and kinda forgot about what was coming. But now, I was about to face reality again.

What were we gonna do? Bail? But if I really wanted to ditch Professor Hardwigg, it should’a been in Hamburg, not at the foot of Sneffels.

One thought, more than anything, started stressing me out: a seriously scary thought, and one that could totally freak someone out, even someone as chill as me.

"Let’s think this through," I said to myself.

We’re climbing Sneffels mountain. Okay. We’re going to the very bottom of the crater. Cool, I guess. Others have done it and didn’t die.

"But that’s not the whole story. If there’s actually a way to go down into the dark, underground depths of Mother Earth, if that unlucky Saknussemm really told the truth, we’re totally lost in a maze of underground tunnels inside the volcano. And we don’t even know if Sneffels is really extinct."

What proof do we have that an eruption isn’t about to happen? Just because it’s been sleeping since twelve nineteen, does that mean it’s never going to wake up?

"If it does wake up, what happens to us?" Those were some serious questions, and I thought about them a lot.

I couldn’t even sleep without dreaming about eruptions. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to be turned into ash. I couldn’t take it anymore. So, I decided to tell my uncle the whole thing, but in a super sneaky way, like a totally crazy idea. I found him.

I told him my worries, then stepped back to let him cool off.

"I’ve been thinking about it," he said, super calmly.

What did he mean? Was he finally listening to reason? Was he going to scrap his plans? It felt almost too good to be real. But I didn’t say anything. I really wanted to let him think things over. After a bit, he spoke up.

"I've been thinking about it," he started again.

"Ever since we got to Stapi, my mind's been practically all about the big question you asked me - because acting without thinking would be totally unwise and inconsistent."

"I totally agree, Uncle," I said, feeling a little hopeful.

"It's been six hundred years since Sneffels last spoke, but even though he's quiet now, he could speak again. New volcanic eruptions always have signs beforehand."

"I’ve studied the people around here, checked out the ground - and I’m telling you straight, Harry, there won’t be an eruption anytime soon."

I was stunned and couldn’t get a word out.

"You don't believe me, do you?" my uncle said. "Follow me."

I did it without really thinking.

We left the church and the Professor took a path through a gap in the basalt rock, way from the sea. We were soon in open country - if you could call it that, since the whole place was covered in volcanic stuff.

The land looked totally flattened under huge rocks - trap, basalt, granite, lava, everything volcanic.

I could see steam rising everywhere. These white clouds, called "reykir" in Icelandic, come from hot springs and show how active the ground is. Seeing all this, I felt even more worried. So I was super surprised when my uncle said this.

"See all this smoke, Harry, my boy?" "Yeah, sir."

"As long as you see it like that, you don't have anything to worry about from the volcano." "But how can that be?"

"Be sure to remember this," the Professor went on.

"When an eruption's coming, those bursts of steam get way more active - then they just vanish during the actual eruption. The elastic fluids, they don't have the pressure anymore, so they go inside the crater instead of escaping through cracks in the earth."

"If the steam acts normal, if it's not getting more intense, and if there's no weird, heavy air and no wind, you're safe from an eruption anytime soon." "But - "

"That's enough, kid. When science speaks, you listen."

I headed back to the house, feeling totally bummed and defeated. My uncle had just crushed me with his science stuff. Still, I had one last hope: once we were at the bottom of the crater, there’s no way to go any deeper without a tunnel or something.

And that's it, no matter how many Saknussemms there are.

I spent the whole next night with this creepy feeling hanging over me! And after some seriously messed-up stuff, I found myself way down in the earth, suddenly shot out into space, like a chunk of eruptive rock!

The next day, June twenty-third, Hans was waiting for us outside the church, cool as a cucumber, with his three helpers loaded with food, tools, and gear. Two poles with iron tips, two guns, and two big game bags were set aside for my uncle and me.

Hans, who never forgot the smallest detail, had thrown in a huge skin full of water, on top of our water bottles. That gave us enough water for eight days.

It was nine in the morning, and we were finally ready to roll. The rector and his seriously large wife - or maybe she was his housekeeper, I honestly couldn't tell - were at the door to see us off. They looked like they were about to give us the standard Icelandic goodbye kiss.

But then, total shocker, they handed us a massive bill. Seriously, they even charged us for using the guest house, which was honestly the grossest place I'd ever been in.

The couple totally ripped us off, like a shady Swiss hotel owner, and the price made us feel like we were being punished for their hospitality.

My uncle, though, just paid without a word. A guy who’s set on a trip to the Earth's core isn’t gonna argue over a few bucks.

Once that was settled, Hans gave the go-ahead, and a few minutes later, we were outta Stapi.