Flo en México: Fuego VIII

I decided to count the weekend at Fuego while installing the radar as one trip, so the trip last Tuesday and Wednesday is my eighth trip to the south flank of Fuego.
On Tuesday afternoon we left with Juan Carlos truck and a TV Crew in their truck for the 1975 Lava flow on the east flank of Fuego.

View back on the ride to Fuego

Algave fields

Juan Carlos' truck

The TV truck

Colima landscape with the volcano in the background

Our own truck is in the workshop since the brakes had completely failed when John drove it down from El Playón on the weekend. When Martin compared his photos of the last two El Playón trips he found an astonishing similarity. For both trips he had a photo of the crew bending over the open truck because it had lost fluid. The difference was power steering fluid and happened up on Nevado at the site of the Observatory on the first trip. This time the breaks failed completely and John luckily was able to stop the truck using first gear and a little upwards slope. Then they had to be rescued by Proteción Civil de Jalisco and spent their Night at the PCJ site in Guzmán. When PCJ put the truck on their place where you can go below it and have a look they had great fun because of the bad state of the whole engine compartment and the hole in the floor below the gas pedal. John brought a still pretty dead truck back on Monday after getting the breaks kind of sorted and since Tuesday it is touring Colima's workshops.
We don't have a working hand break and no spare tire. The seat belt for the co-driver is defunct, too. Our four wheel drive also only is painted on the gearshift. More than half a year ago this has inspired students to draw pictures of the life saving Supertruck that some noble donor is supposed to pay for. We have kind of come to accept that the most dangerous part of our time here in Mexico is going in that truck. The volcano is completely harmless in comparison.

After a good bit of the way up on the east flank we saw this nice eruption while Nick and Juan Carlos were scouting for the right way in Juan Carlos' truck. The radar basically saw nothing of it, or at least this was my impression when I had a look at the data.

Eruption on the way to the '75 lava flow

Definitively wind from north

Lukas and I had joined the TV Crew because their truck hat tires without of any profile and some extra weight in the back really helps when driving on the dirt tracks. We usually do this on the steeper slopes when driving up to the south flank with few people.
When we arrived at Juan Carlos truck, Nick and Erin had already left for the lava flow, so we went there on our own. Juan Carlos stayed at the truck. The sight of the flow is awesome. Loads of rocks with their crazy fracturing and sharp edges. After taking some photos and doing interviews with the TV crew we started to shout for Nick and Erin and could locate them in the forest on their way to the flow. It took them a while to reach the flow and then Nick could give an interview, too.

Entering the '75 lava flow

Rocks, ...

... rocks, ...

... rocks.

On our way down Juan Carlos had to help the TV-Crew a bit when their truck got stuck. When it was already dark we arrived in La Queseria where we ate some tacos and then headed towards the south flank. On the dirt roads Lukas and I joined the TV truck again to help them climb the road. At about 11 pm we arrived at our parking lot and set up the tents.

preparations for towing

On the next morning we went up to the site of the radar. As we expected Nick did not like our bunker, but this time our kind of open construction proved pretty useful since I had forgotten the key to the lock. I could reach for the necessary cables and we got the laptops connected and running without having to take the roof off.

Fuego in the morning light

On the way up

a nice algave-style plant

view down towards south

connected

Lukas and I spent the day at the radar and put up my tarp as a tent.

Shade really helps up there

Our little volcanic motion detector

If you don't have a converter plug, a bit of wire and duck tape do the same job

A later stage of the tent

Erin, Juan Carlos, Nick and the camera man went up to a lava flow that is really close to the crater to get a few rock samples. The other TV guys stayed a bit of time with us and then went down to prepare some food. We watched two little eruptions that our radar seemingly did not detect (maybe closer examinations shows some data) and went down again at six thirty. A bit later Erin and the camera man arrived and a good bit later Nick and Juan Carlos followed. The climbing crew was completely exhausted and badly needed some water and food.