The Lava Tower on Kilimanjaro
The entire trek up Kili is filled with unforgettable sights. Traveling from the rolling lowlands, through dense rainforest, onto a barren heath, and upwards through the alpine desert to the frigid, arctic summit zone makes for pretty varied scenery, after all. But one particular formation has been fascinating and awing climbers for decades, now: Lava Tower. Located a little over 15,000’ up the mountain along the Lemosho and Machame routes, Lava Tower is a large rock formation that (you guessed it) was formed from lava, back in the days when Kilimanjaro was still an active volcano (though Kili is dormant these days, and hasn’t had a major eruption in around 150,000 years, fumaroles near the summit crater still emit gases, and there was volcanic activity on the mountain just 200 years ago). Lava Tower is what’s known as a volcanic plug; at some point in the distant past, lava shot out a vent at the base of where Lava Tower now stands, cooled, and hardened, thus ...