On day some out of seven in Flagstaff, I decide to explore Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki National Monuments. One of the many beauties of slow travel is the fact that the days melt into each other smoothly and without the looming pressure to __________ (insert any travel-related verb here) more. I am here with no itinerary, a luxury available to me mostly during the months of June and half of July. 

I make the trip to these two national monuments, which are approximately a thirty-minute chill drive away from Flagstaff. Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki are adjacent to each other, so it makes no sense to skip one if you decide to visit the other. I was initially going to write about both in this post, but as I started writing, thematically, centering my reflection on Sunset Crater Volcano only made more sense for my overthinking brain.

Volcanoes Are Fascinating

My fascination with volcanoes resurfaces as I start browsing the small exhibition about the history of the monument in the tiny Visitor Center. Volcanoes have fascinated me since I was a kid, although I certainly was no volcano geek. In fact, my interest wasn’t necessarily related to the geologic features of volcanoes. Rather, I was always curious about the people and their daily lives and routines knowing that they lived in proximity to an incredibly beautiful and destructive natural wonder. Did those people live more courageously? Did they ever feel rooted to the place where they resided? Or perhaps they adopted a laissez-faire attitude towards life in an area marked by tangible unpredictability…I still think about these questions.

In middle school, I read so many stories about Pompeii, always wondering what the local population thought and felt as Vesuvius was erupting and they realized that they would be swept away and buried under the lava. My fascination with this landscape-altering phenomenon peaked in October 2021 when I got to witness the real-time real-life eruption of Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii. I will need to write a separate post to describe this moment, but suffice it to say that few travel experiences as of now are within the same range of preciousness and uniqueness as the Kilauea eruption. 

Things Find Their Way

Sunset Crater Volcano is seemingly unassuming at first. Ordinary, to say the least. It is not until I start walking on the short trail through the lava rocks that I am able to start grasping what is so special about this place. The symbiosis between the stale and merciless soil and the daring and scattered vegetation is extraordinary. The contrast between the snow-capped Humphreys Peak in the background, and the dry composition of what seems like pure decay and stagnation right in front of me is at first unfathomable, then incredulous, and eventually intriguing. There’s this energy of old and new, of struggle and persistence, of submergence and revival. Everything seems to have its place, even where you wouldn’t expect to see it. With volcanic fields, I keep running into this one universal theme: Things find their way. 

Sunset Crater Volcano erupted about a thousand years ago, leaving a paradoxically fine balance of creation and destruction in its aftermath. If it wasn’t for the eruption, the peoples that lived on this land would probably not have been displaced, the land would not have been left as barren, but also the 600 hills and mountains in the San Francisco volcanic field would not have been there for us to explore and admire today. These facts in combination with Indigenous peoples’ wisdom and perspective on “catastrophic” nature events are written on most of the information boards placed towards the end of the paved side of the trail. My amazement for this place starts growing by the minute.

Change Is the Only Constant

The running theme in this monument seems to be written everywhere and engraved in the landscape all over: “Change is the only constant. Every time a volcano erupts, a new life begins.” The words are now stuck in my head. Does this mean that whatever I witness now is less alive or less valuable than what was before? Does it mean that whatever was would have stayed the same if it wasn’t for the sweeping eruption? Does this life now compare in any way to the life before? I don’t think I mean to answer or philosophize these questions as I am standing there or as I am writing this.The mere question has the answer in itself. 

Change is the only constant in our lifetime. 

Watching the cinder dunes covered in dark gray and a few ailed pines rising in the distance, I think about my only constant, my own volcanic eruptions. The rising of the magma, the sweeping of the familiar landscapes. How things inevitably got scattered. How people just disappeared. How some came back, some turned into ghosts. I look at my own new landscape and I see how different it has turned out to be. I even dare to acknowledge that it is more beautiful than before.

As I look at the San Francisco peaks in the distance, the pines that are finding their own way, the lichens that started the chain of life here, I instincitively start searching for the sorrow and nostalgia for the known. I find none. None within, none without. Nothing for the first time.

Let the renewal settle, I tell myself. Let the peaks rise and the landscapes form. Let whoever and whatever wants to stay and return be part of what has now come to exist. 

Things find their own way.

And things can start anew as many times as you allow. So be it.