Mount Pinatubo
The Second Largest Volcanic Eruption Of The Twentieth Century, Which Cooled The Whole Planet And Displaced The Aeta Permanently · Botolan, Zambales
IN JUNE 1991 PINATUBO PRODUCED THE SECOND-LARGEST VOLCANIC ERUPTION OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. It put something like twenty million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere and COOLED THE GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE BY ROUGHLY HALF A DEGREE FOR TWO YEARS - a mountain in Zambales changed the weather of the entire planet. Clark and Subic were abandoned. AND THE PART THAT GETS LEFT OUT: THE LAHARS THAT FOLLOWED FOR YEARS AFTERWARDS DID MORE CUMULATIVE DAMAGE THAN THE ERUPTION ITSELF, burying towns across Pampanga and Zambales under rain-mobilised ash every wet season for a decade. THE AETA WHO LIVED ON THE MOUNTAIN WERE PERMANENTLY DISPLACED AND MANY NEVER RETURNED. What is left is a turquoise crater lake, reached by four-wheel drive across grey lahar flats and then on foot, and it is beautiful in a way that should sit uneasily. The route is shut roughly June to October, when the river channels it follows are in flood.
Mount Pinatubo, Zambales, Central Luzon, Botolan, Zambales, Philippines
THE STANDARD TRIP STARTS AT SANTA JULIANA IN CAPAS, TARLAC, roughly three to four hours from Manila, and runs a FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE ACROSS THE LAHAR FLATS followed by a WALK OF ROUGHLY AN HOUR to the crater rim. REGISTRATION AND A GUIDE ARE REQUIRED and are arranged at the jump-off; the vehicles are hired per group. THE ROUTE IS CLOSED THROUGH THE WET SEASON, ROUGHLY JUNE TO OCTOBER, when the river channels the track follows are in flood - this is a genuine closure, not a weather preference, and it also closes after heavy rain outside those months. DEPARTURES ARE AT DAWN because the flats are brutally hot and unshaded by mid-morning. SWIMMING IN THE CRATER LAKE HAS BEEN PROHIBITED at times. Carry everything; there is nothing on the mountain.