The Idiot's sweaty SPOT GPS withstands Etna’s smoke, sulfur and heat.

Update: Mount Etna erupted again in January 2012.

There IS a $100-plus Disneyland-like “ride” to the top of Mount Etna, Europe’s highest active volcano and one of the top draws in Sicily.

Go to the Rifugio Sapienza on the south side of the mountain and pay the inflated fee. Then take a cable car and ride a heavy-duty Mercedes-Benz Unimog up to 2,700-meters. There you’ll get a guide and walk in a large group at a slow pace to the 3,323-meter (10,902 feet) summit. That expensive, somewhat challenging route is recommended/sold to everyone wanting to get to the central crater.

The Idiot takes a less-congested approach.

Or you can Follow the Idiot on an adventurous backdoor MedTrekking path that, albeit illegal until the month of July when the snow melts and guides are available, makes you feel that you’ve earned the stupendous views at Etna’s cold and windy summit.

This route through the national park doesn’t only end with a wondrous lookout on the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and a close glimpse inside the smoky, sulfur-smelling, bellowing crater at Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and metalwork. But there are also forests and surprising sights on the way. Plus the chance that Etna (the name comes from the Greek for “I burn”) could erupt, as it has more than 200 times during the last 3,500 years.

Lava gargoyles on The Idiot’s path to Etna.

The Idiot didn’t buy this house destroyed by the 2002 eruption.

Here’s the 31-kilometer roundtrip that The Idiot suggests you make from the north side of Etna.

Once you get to the trailhead at Piano Provenzana, which was badly damaged by a 2002 eruption that created over twenty new craters that you’ll soon pass, follow the dirt track up Mount Etna towards the observatory. Before you arrive, take the path off to the right and spend a few hours gingerly traversing up and around the mountain through the snow.

Follow the road before traversing a snow-covered slope to the top.

The Disneyland gang approaches Etna from the south side.

It’s an easy path to the smoky top.

But it’s not always easy to see the path.

Uh, don’t get too close to the edge like The Idiot did.

Then savor the sights (don’t take a deep breath because the sulfur is toxic, The Idiot learned) and remember that it’s an hour quicker to get down the mountain than it was to get up.

The Idiot suffering from sulfur overdose atop Mount Etna.

If you Follow The Idiot’s backdoor MedTrek to the top of Mount Etna you’ll wind up @

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=37.75193,14.99147&ll=37.75193,14.99147&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Today The Idiot is searching for the actual cave of the Cyclops called Polyphemus on the southeastern side of Mount Etna. It’s somewhere among the mountain’s 231 grottos.

Text and Photos: Joel Stratte-McClure

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About Joel

Joel Stratte-McClure has been a global trekker since the 1970s. He lived in France for over 30 years, working as a journalist, before he turned his attention to a unique life-time-project of walking the shores of the Mediterranean. The first 4,401 kilometers are explored in his inspirational and entertaining first book "The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean." The next 4,401 kilometers are covered in the gods-filled sequel, "The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean,” published on Valentine's Day 2013. The last 4,401 kilometers will be discussed in the last book of the trilogy currently entitled "The Idiot and the Odyssey III: Alexander the Great Walks the Mediterranean."