Explorer: Lake of Fire (2023) Movie Script
1
[waves]
[Freddie Wilkinson] Going
to a place this remote,
things never go
according to plan.
[wind howling]
If we get into trouble,
nobody's coming to get us.
[camera shutter]
[camera shutter]
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson] This expedition
is really a once in a lifetime
opportunity to answer some of
the questions about what is
going on deep beneath our
feet inside of our planet.
We have no idea what
we're walking towards.
[wind howling]
[theme music plays]
[speaking native language].
[rumbling]
[explosion]
[Witness] [bleep].
Holy [bleep].
Ah. Here.
[Reporter] These are the
stunning images of an undersea
volcano off the coast of Tonga
erupting higher than
ten miles into the air.
[Reporter] This satellite image
from space shows the sheer
force of the eruption.
14 million people under alert
from Alaska to California.
[Emma Nicholson] Around a tenth
of the world's population are
within 100 kilometers
of a volcano,
which is the footprint by
which they could be affected
by volcanic hazard.
[David Muir] Sudden and deadly
volcano erupting in New Zealand
with no warning.
At least five people
killed and many still missing.
[Emma Nicholson] Currently
scientists cannot reliably
forecast when the
next eruption may be.
[Witness] Oh my god.
[Emma Nicholson] Our mission
is to explore a very enigmatic,
unknown volcano on
Saunders Island,
right in the center
of the South Atlantic.
We have tantalizing hints
that it maybe a very rare
opportunity to learn more
about how volcanoes operate.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Day four at sea.
We're more than halfway there.
You know, some of us have
been dealing with the seas just
fine, some of us have
been puking our guts out,
but Captain Ben says this
is like kindergarten stuff
compared to what we're gonna
encounter on the final approach
to Saunders Island.
[Emma Nicholson] The first
few days were pretty tough,
I'll admit.
I felt pretty awful
most of the time.
You can't see land
in any direction.
We're about as alone as we
can possibly get out here.
It's a good place to just
sit in your thoughts and
think about what we're gonna do
when we get to the island.
Even from the satellites we
very rarely get a glimpse of
the upper parts
of this volcano.
It's almost always covered and
hidden within this thick cloud.
What has been seen is this
persistent thermal anomaly
at the summit.
With the temperature, we
would expect for molten lava.
This is a tantalizing hint that
it hosts an incredibly rare
phenomenon called a lava lake.
Lava Lakes are the perfect
natural laboratory
to study volcanoes.
You can think of it as though
you've taken the lid off a
volcano to peer inside.
There is really no other
way that you can see what is
happening inside of a volcano
so clearly right
in front of you.
At the moment we have seven
other known Lava Lakes
in the world.
To find another Lava Lake is
once in a lifetime opportunity,
but Mount Michael
is as yet unclimbed.
Something that I'm really
thinking carefully about is
we're going to need to really
watch what this vent is doing
when we arrive.
Those steam expulsion can be
just violent as an eruption at
the main crater, but far
less easier to forecast.
[Freddie Wilkinson] So our
climbing route could explode
while we're on it?
[Emma Nicholson] All the more
reason to perhaps consider the
northern flank, if
this vent is active.
[Carla Perez] It depends a lot
of the weather and the wind,
but we will try to go by
the north in the flat areas.
I was born in Ecuador
surrounded by a lot
of volcanoes, active volcanoes
and climb this volcano
is a dream, a life dream.
I just have this thinking of
this is going to be
really challenge.
[Joo Lages] We can definitely
do a gas survey all the way
throughout that flank, that
would be really interesting.
In order to measure the
pulse of the volcano,
volcanic gas compositions are
a telegram of what's going on
underneath the surface.
[Emma Nicholson] The ultimate
goal is to find out whether
Mount Michael indeed hosts a
lava lake at its summit and
how we can use its secrets to
understand much more about
how volcanoes work
around the world.
[Kieran Wood] All eyes were
fixed in hope that what we've
come here to find is actually
true and there is a lava lake.
These are rare phenomenon on
the planets and that offers a
great insight into how a
complete volcanic system works.
That's the science,
that's what we're doing.
[waves crashing]
[ratcheting]
[Freddie Wilkinson] We're six
miles out from Saunders Island
somewhere right in that fog
is a unclimbed volcano
waiting to be
explored and studied.
I'd say excitement is high.
It's gonna be go time.
[chatter]
[Ben Wallis] There's more
ice here, I'd go back this way.
[Emma Nicholson] We just could
see nothing and then suddenly
the mist just parted.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Wow.
Whooo.
[Kieran Wood] Look at that.
[Carla Perez] Oh my god.
Whoo.
[Emma Nicholson]
That's just beautiful.
[Kieran Wood] It's so amazing.
[Emma Nicholson] The plume is
just coming right over the top,
rolling down.
[Kieran Wood] We've made it.
[Emma Nicholson] Yeah.
[Kieran Wood] We're finally
here. Magnificent.
This beautiful volcano
staring us in the face.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Whoo, hoo.
[Ben Wallis] That looks mean.
[Carla Perez] You want to
come to climb with us?
[laughing]
[Carla Perez] I'm so excited.
I'm ready to go.
I'm now trying to
find a way to climb it.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Oh my god.
[Emma Nicholson] I can't
believe how incredibly lucky
we've been to see that view.
I mean, the conditions outside
are far from ideal for landing.
I think the winds are forecast
to die down a little bit ahead
of tomorrow and that'll
be our big day for
moving everything ashore.
But there's a little bit of me
that just wants to get on that
island as quickly as possible.
[laughs].
I've been fascinated by
volcanoes since I was about
six years old.
When my parents visited
a volcano called
Mount Saint Helen's,
I remember seeing all the trees
blown down in one direction,
ash was everywhere even
ten years after the eruption
and, even
at that young age,
I wanted to understand what
forces could have created that
landscape in front of me.
I realized that in order
to really understand
what is going on,
you have to be there,
you have to see it and
you have to feel it.
When I first started as a
volcanologist it was driven
predominately by
my own curiosity,
but as you meet people
that have been impacted,
they change you,
and you start asking,
well how can I translate my
research into something that
has a tangible contribution
to the lives of people and
communities around the world.
[Ben Wallis] Is the sunset
illuminating that or
is that the lava?
[Kieran Wood] The only time
I've ever seen anything like
that is when there's been lava.
[Ben Wallis] That's insane.
[Kieran Wood] Proof of
the pudding is, you know,
seeing it with our own eyes,
but that is looking
pretty damn hopeful.
-Okay.
-Yep.
[laughs].
[Emma Nicholson] That's
all we needed to see.
[Kieran Wood] Yep.
We're on for an epic adventure
to go and find out what is
actually up there.
[ringing, resonant music]
[Emma Nicholson] Getting from
the boat to the island is a
Mission: Impossible
style scenario.
[rumbling]
[Kieran Wood] Whoa.
[Joo Lages] Let's go get it.
[Kieran Wood] We've gotta do
this maybe 30 or 40 times with
tons of gear and every
single one of them has gotta go
perfectly and not damage
the boat or any of us
or else it's game over.
[bleep].
No, don't put there,
put it down,
take it up the beach Joo.
[wave crashing]
[Emma Nicholson] Once we
had all the bags ashore,
we sent Kieran and Carla up to
recce a good site for our camp.
[squawking]
[Kieran Wood] Hello. Come to
see what all the fuss is about?
[Emma Nicholson] The island
of Saunders is home to
hundreds of thousands
of penguins,
elephant seals,
leopard seals, weddell seals.
It's just teeming with life.
We needed to choose a spot
for the base camp that was
far enough away from the
wildlife down on the beach,
that we would cause
minimum disturbance to them.
[Freddie Wilkinson] You guys
find a campsite?
[Kieran Wood] We have.
We've just been scouting up on
on the flank to the volcano,
on the lower sections
to find a flattish spot.
We think we've
found a good spot.
This is going to be an absolute
mission to carry everything up
there, but we'll get there.
[Carla Perez] Do you
think can put this here.
Yeah.
[Kieran Wood]
Yeah, if it fits here.
[Carla Perez] From the
snaps, like back of the snaps.
We have all this equipment,
it was like 3,000 kilos of
equipment that we got.
So, if we don't have
all that on base camp,
we cannot climb.
[Emma Nicholson] Base camp is
around 100 meters of elevation
above the beach and
each bag is between
20 and 30 kilograms.
Actually transporting that
up to base camp was a
huge physical effort.
[Freddie Wilkinson] It's
a pretty big job today.
We're all psyched
to be on dry ground,
but it takes quite a lot of
effort to establish
a good base camp.
We gotta put a little blood,
sweat and tears to get here.
And then the payoff will be in
the days to come when we can
use this base camp to do
some really cool
science and exploring.
[squawking]
[Kieran Wood] Final load.
That was a lot of work getting
all the gear up for base camp,
but we're finally done
and just in time for a pretty
magnificent view actually.
Mount Michael's just come out
of the cloud after about
six hours of being hidden.
This is our home for
the next 12 days or so.
[Emma Nicholson] That was a
really, really tough day.
I'm not sure there's a
muscle in my body that isn't
crying out for sleep.
Oh.
Just a few more meters.
A few more meters, final load.
[Renan Ozturk] We got a
base camp all set up.
[Emma Nicholson] It looks like
a dream, it really does.
-Grab a seat.
-Thank you.
[Joo Lages] There's
seating for everybody.
[Kieran Wood] Will you
do a little cup for me?
[Emma Nicholson] This
expedition really is the
culmination of years
of dreaming on my part.
Back in 2020, we put together
an expedition to find out
whether Mount Michael indeed
hosts a lava lake at its summit,
but the weather was
very much not on our side.
We got about halfway up and
had to make the very difficult
decision to turn around, and
that completely broke my heart.
I'd put years of work into
trying to make this
expedition happen.
And I could feel
that slipping away.
And I never thought I would get
the opportunity to try again,
but here we are.
In many ways lava lakes
shouldn't really exist.
As you move magma
towards the surface,
it should cool and crystallize
very, very quickly.
So in order to maintain
lava molten at the surface,
you need this delicate balance
between the amount of heat
coming in versus the
amount of heat going out.
So, even just understanding
why they exist at all is still
really fundamental, and we
can use these insights to
understand more about
volcanoes around the world.
[Kieran Wood] The goal here is
to use the drone to go get a
sneak peek of what we
might find at the top.
This one's got a
thermal camera,
so if there is any kind of lava
close to the surface is should
be like super clear
on the thermal view.
It's looking
pretty magnificent.
Okay, so I'm at 700 meters,
800 meters above here,
which is probably
summit altitude.
A whole lot of
condensing flume at the moment,
but we haven't
switched to the IR yet.
Okay, I'm looking
kind of down into it,
shall we swap to have
a look what we see?
Whooo.
Holy moly.
[gasps].
Now our two little vents.
Switch back to
visible quick to see if,
no, thank got for IR.
I wouldn't see anything.
[Emma Nicholson] For
sure there are two vents.
Absolutely.
Both are active.
Both are
releasing a lot of gas.
But again, until
we get eyes on,
right up close, the mystery
still remains as to whether
this is indeed
the next lava lake.
The first thermal flight over
the summit was really the next
crucial piece in the puzzle of
what is actually going on
at Mount Michael.
One of the main goals of
volcanology is to really
understand the physics and the
chemistry that drives volcanic
eruptions in order to be able
to forecast these events like
we forecast the weather.
The satellite era changed so
much about how we can identify
volcanic unrest, but we cannot
rely on satellite data alone.
We need those in situ
observations to ground truth
the satellite date that
we're collecting so that we can
interpret what we see from
space within the context of the
physical and chemical
models we're developing
of how volcanoes work.
We've designed a whole range
of different experiments to
explore how
Mount Michael behaves,
taking snow samples,
water samples,
measuring the
earthquake activity.
Every piece of evidence was
pointing to the fact that lava
was really close to the surface
and it was just
there for us to find.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Final prep
to leave for a attempt
at the rim today.
Winds are forecast to increase
by 10-15 knots in
the next 24 hours.
On paper the mountain
looks relatively doable.
It's about 1,000 meters
above sea level with
one central caldera
around the summit area.
But there's also appeared
several different vent holes
and spots where steam is
releasing from the
flanks of the mountain.
Relatively thin glaciers can
also have really
problematic crevasses.
And so there's a
lot of unknowns.
[Emma Nicholson] The ascent
to the summit is gonna push us
beyond the limits of anything
we've done before and we will
be relying very heavily on the
mountaineering expertise within
the team to make this ascent.
[Carla Perez] In this
expedition we have a lot of
risk with the volcano,
with the glacier,
with the wind, with the weather
and there is this limit,
this point when you can feel
like if a little thing goes
wrong, people can die.
[wind blowing]
[wind howling]
[Carla Perez] Hey guys,
the rope needs to be tight.
Okay?
[Freddie Wilkinson] Day three
of the expedition,
we launched our
first summit attempt.
Our goal wasn't just to get
to the top of the mountain and
claim the first ascent.
Our goal was to unravel the
mystery of what's going on
within the summit
crater of Mount Michael.
And so, to do that, we
needed to be able to conduct
meaningful field science
close to the summit rim
and that requires a more
thoughtful approach.
This is not your
average first ascent.
This is a new set of dangers
and risks that there's very few
places on earth that you have
to deal with as a mountaineer.
[Carla Perez]
With that wind and cold,
it can turn the
climb pretty dangerous.
[Emma Nicholson] I'm struggling.
Just keeps on coming.
The wind just keeps
pushing us all over the place.
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson] We were
only halfway at this point,
and we'd been climbing for
three or three and a half hours.
[wind howling]
I was getting fatigued.
I was stumbling
over my crampons.
I knelt down just for a moment.
I just needed that reminder to
myself that this is something
that I dreamed about
for however many years.
I'd prepared for.
And that this was just something
that I needed to push through.
[Carla Perez] Emma,
how are you?
[Emma Nicholson] I'm okay.
[Carla Perez] Are you okay?
Do you want to keep going?
[Emma Nicholson]
I want to keep going.
[Emma Nicholson] I wanted
to feel strong,
I wanted to feel in control and
I didn't want to feel that
I had any risk of being the
reason why the team
didn't make it to the summit.
[Emma Nicholson] It will
not break me!
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Nice work, Emma!
I think it's like
100 meters to the rim.
We're getting close.
Really good job
pushing through.
[Emma Nicholson]
Getting so close!
So close!
[Emma Nicholson] Woo-hoo!
[Freddie ] That's a first ascent
on Mt. Michael, Emma.
[Emma Nicholson] First ascent,
oh my god.
[Emma Nicholson] Oh my god.
[Emma Nicholson] I've waited
so many years for this,
so many years.
[Emma Nicholson] The joy and
the relief and the pride at
reaching the summit and
achieving that something that,
I mean, I'd dreamt about years
was an incredible feeling.
[Emma Nicholson]
Thank you, Carla,
thank you, Freddie,
thank you, Kieran.
[Emma Nicholson] Thank you.
Oh.
[gases hissing]
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson]
Can you hear me?
We have two options.
Option A, here.
Option B, back in the
hollow where we were.
A or B?
B, okay.
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson] Our main
objective now is to get our
instruments right into
the heart of the gas plume.
To be able to then see a
really clear picture of
what is happening in the
volcano deep below.
[wind howling]
I can smell that.
Yeah, I can smell
plenty of gas here.
We should go here.
This is a good spot.
[Emma] We're collecting
samples of the gas plume
emitted from the volcano,
which we can smell and taste.
[Emma Nicholson] Volcanic
gases are the fuel that drives
explosive eruptions.
One of the main challenges in
volcanology is understanding
these transitions
between passive behavior,
where a volcano is
quiet or dormant,
versus these rapid transitions
to then explosive behavior.
Measuring gases is one of the
key ways that we can use
lava lakes for forecasting.
[Emma Nicholson] That will
now run for may half an hour,
45 minutes, so we can
get a really good sample.
[Emma Nicholson] Now, our
main objective is to get to the
crater rim to be able to
confirm what's inside.
[wind howling]
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Can't see anything.
[Emma Nicholson]
No. I can't see a thing!
[Carla Perez] The
weather was really bad,
there was zero visibility,
so we don't know if we were
actually in the real
summit or even in the crater.
We didn't know that.
And all that area
can be very dangerous.
[Freddie Wilkinson] It
seems like there's a significant
drop-off right there.
[Emma Nicholson] We'd seen in
front of us a crack that could
have been a crevasse
or it could have been
the side of the crater.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Visibility is still an issue.
Until we get more information,
we're gonna belay you out,
so you can continue to
explore and take measurements.
[Emma Nicholson] So this
is our base camp.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
This is our base camp.
[Kieran Wood] Sounds good.
I've got thermal camera ready
to go,
so if there's a drop off
it would be nice to maybe go see
if we can point it down a bit.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we're gonna
put Kieran on belay.
[Kieran Wood] We had to make
decisions on the fly to get the
best out of a bad situation.
No-one's been there,
there's no maps,
there's no routes to
get to this location.
So, it was a really
exploratory moment to go and
discover the undiscovered.
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson]
What do you see?
[Kieran Wood] I see very little.
[Emma Nicholson] Okay,
go to the end of your belay,
see what you can
see and then return.
Anything on the
thermal imaging?
[Kieran Wood]
Nothing on thermal camera.
Coming back! Coming back!
It was just going down,
got a bit steeper,
I couldn't see where it went
after that, I ran out of rope.
[Emma Nicholson] It's so
incredibly frustrating to be
so close to what we
think is the crater edge,
but we just can't see.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Here,
dealing with a combination of
the wind, the temperature
and the humidity,
life is measured in hours.
The ice, it's not just forming
on the summit of the mountain,
it's forming on your body and
forming on your external layers
and, over time, that moisture
gets closer to your core and
it can kill you.
[Emma Nicholson] I mean,
we know we're really close but,
we're completely blind.
And it's not safe to be
exploring without
really being able to see
where we are going.
[Kieran Wood] Let's do
the good thing and turn around
so we can fight another day.
And get out of here.
We'll pack and
we'll head down now.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Appreciated.
Is that good with you, Carla?
[Carla Perez] Yeah.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Okay.
[somber music]
[Emma Nicholson] I gave myself
quite a mental beating on the
way down because,
by that point,
the winds had died,
everything felt calm,
everything felt much easier,
and the challenges at the
summit had faded into the
background and all I could
think about was the
things that I hadn't done.
As we arrived back in camp,
after what had been one of the
most incredible and
challenging days of my life,
we were brought down
to earth very quickly.
[wind blowing]
[wind howling]
The wind at the place that we'd
chosen for base camp was just
rocketing through and
threatening to collapse
any tent that was
left unprotected.
[wind howling]
[Kieran Wood] We've just
been building snow walls,
digging in the tents,
doing everything we can
to make it storm proof.
You know, this could get worse
and we don't want to be caught
out, so that was a big
effort by everybody.
[wind howling]
[Freddie Wilkinson] It's a
pretty dangerous situation,
a combination of this wind
and warm above freezing temps.
I'd feel better if it
was below freezing.
If it was below freezing, we'd
have lots of snow and we can
dig a snow cave.
But, you know, the snow is
melting and getting blown
away from us as we speak.
Any sort of movement
would not be advisable.
[wind blowing]
It's a freight train.
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson] We're
gusting 50, 50 knots.
I've never seen a
weather forecast like that.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Yeah [bleep] kittens.
[Emma Nicholson] We were
suddenly realizing that a lot
of what we had planned we
either wouldn't be able to
finish, we wouldn't
even be able to start.
[Freddie Wilkinson] This is
kinda what I was scared of,
the reality, like, when you
step outside the tent and
you stand in these
elements for five minutes,
it's definitely a
big slap in the face.
[Emma Nicholson] Finally the
forecast showed there was
a small weather window
the following day.
We knew that this opportunity
might be our only chance.
[Carla Perez]
It's going to be tough.
So maybe you have
like a couple hours
just for sampling the
north side of the...
[Emma Nicholson] And we make
the most of those two hours.
We'll be ready.
[ominous music]
[wind blowing]
[Freddie Wilkinson] By that
morning it was abundantly clear
that we couldn't stay on
Saunders Island indefinitely.
[Kieran Wood] We've just had our
tent blown down, unfortunately.
Some of the poles have
just completely bent,
the wind is just ferocious.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Our gear
was taking such a thrashing
that things were gonna start
to fail in a matter of days.
So decisions had to be made.
[Emma Nicholson] There was
really no change in the
long range forecast.
There was a small weather
window that we would be able
to get off the island.
It was either now or
potentially ten days time,
or longer, before we would
be able to leave the island.
So as a team we had that really
difficult decision of how best
to use our time knowing
that our time had run out.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
November 23rd,
it's about 8:00
in the morning,
our team is
trying to get going.
It's a really
crucial day for us.
We gotta get back to
the top of Mount Michael,
at the same time we
have to evacuate camp,
get everyone safely back
onto the boat before
the weather starts to
deteriorate even worse.
So, we're gonna
divide the team,
half the team is
preparing for a summit climb,
half the team is preparing
to get the heck out of here.
[Emma Nicholson]
This is the countdown,
this is your one last chance.
Now or never.
We are really against the
clock to make this final ascent
before the weather window to
get off the island closes.
[Carla Perez] Today, I'm
not going to make long rope.
We must be really close
and focus in the same place.
Okay?
Vamos.
[Emma Nicholson] We knew that
this opportunity might be our
only chance to finally discover
if the world's eighth lava lake
is hidden within the
crater of Mount Michael.
[wind howling]
We'd seen from the forecast
that there was this window of
one, two hours where we might
expect to have reduced winds,
better visibility at the summit.
But to meet those windows meant
we needed to do the climb in
really conditions that
I would never consider.
[wind howling]
We were warned to
expect 30-40 knot winds.
[wind howling]
We were really moving blind.
[wind howling]
We just kept moving vertically
upwards as fast as we could.
Following the route
from our first ascent
all the way to the summit.
[wind howling]
Thankfully that weather window
that had been forecast
started to manifest itself and
the change in
conditions was striking.
You could see all the
way around the crater rim,
not into it, but
all the way around.
So Carla is going to
belay us one at a time
towards the crater and we
see if we can get a good view.
We'd hoped to be able to
get this glimpse
of what was inside.
[intense music]
[Emma Nicholson] Do you
think it's okay to keep going?
I don't have an
ice axe to get out.
[intense music]
[quick, eerie music]
[Emma Nicholson] Do you
think we can get down to there
with the rope we have? Or?
[Carla Perez] Possibly.
[Emma Nicholson] Okay.
We started moving down the
slope towards to where we hoped
we would be able to
look down into the crater.
[Carla Perez] The rope
is getting tighter, I think.
[Emma Nicholson] Yeah.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Unless to that?
[Emma Nicholson] Yeah.
[Emma Nicholson] But, I
don't know how stable that is.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
What if it's unstable?
[Emma Nicholson] Yeah,
I don't think it is stable.
[Emma Nicholson] We realized
that what we were standing on
at that point was one of these
precarious ice precipices that
really had nothing holding
them up from underneath.
[Emma Nicholson] So,
we can't get a clear look.
It's too far down for measuring
from the crater walls.
Very frustrating.
Oh, so close!
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Honestly, I think...
[Emma Nicholson]
You think this is it?
[Freddie Wilkinson]
I think this is it.
[Emma Nicholson] Yep.
We got as close as we
could to peer over,
but, without risking
essentially our lives,
we had to say
enough was enough.
[Emma] I mean, the drone is
really our only option now.
[Renan Ozturk] We're in this
little hole where there's no
wind and we had
the drone there,
so we went for it.
Let's do it.
[Emma Nicholson]
What did you see, Renan?
[Renan Ozturk]
Might have lost the drone...
it's trying to come up.
[Renan Ozturk] You could see
the drone struggling visibly
in the wind.
My fingers were
shaking on the controller.
Kept it on full
forward and, like,
eventually it, like,
did approach the crater.
[dreamy music]
[Emma Nicholson] Oh, it's yes.
It's there.
[Renan Ozturk]
Is that a lava lake?
[Emma Nicholson] Yes,
just very, very deep.
[Renan Ozturk] Wow!
Wow, that looks crazy.
[Renan Ozturk] You could see
this eye of lava down at the
bottom of the crater.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Look at that thing.
[Carla Perez] Wow.
[Emma Nicholson] Until this
moment we were seeing a proxy
for lava, we were
seeing temperature.
We can see now that this
magnitude of thermal anomaly
represents magma that is
several hundred meters below
the surface of the crater,
really feeding the gas plume
that we were measuring.
This is just incredible.
It's very deep,
but it is there.
What we have now is that
crucial piece of the puzzle
that will allow us to use
satellite data moving forward
to monitor this pressure gage.
Whooo.
[laughs].
That was my dream and it's
amazing what that glimpse does,
it just lights
that fire and oh,
I know it's down there now.
We achieved not only a
first ascent of Mount Michael,
we managed to collect valuable
scientific data that will
help us to understand much more
about how volcanoes work
around the world.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Amazing, yeah Emma.
[Emma Nicholson] Wow.
The heart of the beast.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
The heart of the beast.
[upbeat music]
[Emma Nicholson] I just
don't wanna leave this place.
It's a very special moment that
I'll remember for
the rest of my life.
[music plays through credits]
[waves]
[Freddie Wilkinson] Going
to a place this remote,
things never go
according to plan.
[wind howling]
If we get into trouble,
nobody's coming to get us.
[camera shutter]
[camera shutter]
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson] This expedition
is really a once in a lifetime
opportunity to answer some of
the questions about what is
going on deep beneath our
feet inside of our planet.
We have no idea what
we're walking towards.
[wind howling]
[theme music plays]
[speaking native language].
[rumbling]
[explosion]
[Witness] [bleep].
Holy [bleep].
Ah. Here.
[Reporter] These are the
stunning images of an undersea
volcano off the coast of Tonga
erupting higher than
ten miles into the air.
[Reporter] This satellite image
from space shows the sheer
force of the eruption.
14 million people under alert
from Alaska to California.
[Emma Nicholson] Around a tenth
of the world's population are
within 100 kilometers
of a volcano,
which is the footprint by
which they could be affected
by volcanic hazard.
[David Muir] Sudden and deadly
volcano erupting in New Zealand
with no warning.
At least five people
killed and many still missing.
[Emma Nicholson] Currently
scientists cannot reliably
forecast when the
next eruption may be.
[Witness] Oh my god.
[Emma Nicholson] Our mission
is to explore a very enigmatic,
unknown volcano on
Saunders Island,
right in the center
of the South Atlantic.
We have tantalizing hints
that it maybe a very rare
opportunity to learn more
about how volcanoes operate.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Day four at sea.
We're more than halfway there.
You know, some of us have
been dealing with the seas just
fine, some of us have
been puking our guts out,
but Captain Ben says this
is like kindergarten stuff
compared to what we're gonna
encounter on the final approach
to Saunders Island.
[Emma Nicholson] The first
few days were pretty tough,
I'll admit.
I felt pretty awful
most of the time.
You can't see land
in any direction.
We're about as alone as we
can possibly get out here.
It's a good place to just
sit in your thoughts and
think about what we're gonna do
when we get to the island.
Even from the satellites we
very rarely get a glimpse of
the upper parts
of this volcano.
It's almost always covered and
hidden within this thick cloud.
What has been seen is this
persistent thermal anomaly
at the summit.
With the temperature, we
would expect for molten lava.
This is a tantalizing hint that
it hosts an incredibly rare
phenomenon called a lava lake.
Lava Lakes are the perfect
natural laboratory
to study volcanoes.
You can think of it as though
you've taken the lid off a
volcano to peer inside.
There is really no other
way that you can see what is
happening inside of a volcano
so clearly right
in front of you.
At the moment we have seven
other known Lava Lakes
in the world.
To find another Lava Lake is
once in a lifetime opportunity,
but Mount Michael
is as yet unclimbed.
Something that I'm really
thinking carefully about is
we're going to need to really
watch what this vent is doing
when we arrive.
Those steam expulsion can be
just violent as an eruption at
the main crater, but far
less easier to forecast.
[Freddie Wilkinson] So our
climbing route could explode
while we're on it?
[Emma Nicholson] All the more
reason to perhaps consider the
northern flank, if
this vent is active.
[Carla Perez] It depends a lot
of the weather and the wind,
but we will try to go by
the north in the flat areas.
I was born in Ecuador
surrounded by a lot
of volcanoes, active volcanoes
and climb this volcano
is a dream, a life dream.
I just have this thinking of
this is going to be
really challenge.
[Joo Lages] We can definitely
do a gas survey all the way
throughout that flank, that
would be really interesting.
In order to measure the
pulse of the volcano,
volcanic gas compositions are
a telegram of what's going on
underneath the surface.
[Emma Nicholson] The ultimate
goal is to find out whether
Mount Michael indeed hosts a
lava lake at its summit and
how we can use its secrets to
understand much more about
how volcanoes work
around the world.
[Kieran Wood] All eyes were
fixed in hope that what we've
come here to find is actually
true and there is a lava lake.
These are rare phenomenon on
the planets and that offers a
great insight into how a
complete volcanic system works.
That's the science,
that's what we're doing.
[waves crashing]
[ratcheting]
[Freddie Wilkinson] We're six
miles out from Saunders Island
somewhere right in that fog
is a unclimbed volcano
waiting to be
explored and studied.
I'd say excitement is high.
It's gonna be go time.
[chatter]
[Ben Wallis] There's more
ice here, I'd go back this way.
[Emma Nicholson] We just could
see nothing and then suddenly
the mist just parted.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Wow.
Whooo.
[Kieran Wood] Look at that.
[Carla Perez] Oh my god.
Whoo.
[Emma Nicholson]
That's just beautiful.
[Kieran Wood] It's so amazing.
[Emma Nicholson] The plume is
just coming right over the top,
rolling down.
[Kieran Wood] We've made it.
[Emma Nicholson] Yeah.
[Kieran Wood] We're finally
here. Magnificent.
This beautiful volcano
staring us in the face.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Whoo, hoo.
[Ben Wallis] That looks mean.
[Carla Perez] You want to
come to climb with us?
[laughing]
[Carla Perez] I'm so excited.
I'm ready to go.
I'm now trying to
find a way to climb it.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Oh my god.
[Emma Nicholson] I can't
believe how incredibly lucky
we've been to see that view.
I mean, the conditions outside
are far from ideal for landing.
I think the winds are forecast
to die down a little bit ahead
of tomorrow and that'll
be our big day for
moving everything ashore.
But there's a little bit of me
that just wants to get on that
island as quickly as possible.
[laughs].
I've been fascinated by
volcanoes since I was about
six years old.
When my parents visited
a volcano called
Mount Saint Helen's,
I remember seeing all the trees
blown down in one direction,
ash was everywhere even
ten years after the eruption
and, even
at that young age,
I wanted to understand what
forces could have created that
landscape in front of me.
I realized that in order
to really understand
what is going on,
you have to be there,
you have to see it and
you have to feel it.
When I first started as a
volcanologist it was driven
predominately by
my own curiosity,
but as you meet people
that have been impacted,
they change you,
and you start asking,
well how can I translate my
research into something that
has a tangible contribution
to the lives of people and
communities around the world.
[Ben Wallis] Is the sunset
illuminating that or
is that the lava?
[Kieran Wood] The only time
I've ever seen anything like
that is when there's been lava.
[Ben Wallis] That's insane.
[Kieran Wood] Proof of
the pudding is, you know,
seeing it with our own eyes,
but that is looking
pretty damn hopeful.
-Okay.
-Yep.
[laughs].
[Emma Nicholson] That's
all we needed to see.
[Kieran Wood] Yep.
We're on for an epic adventure
to go and find out what is
actually up there.
[ringing, resonant music]
[Emma Nicholson] Getting from
the boat to the island is a
Mission: Impossible
style scenario.
[rumbling]
[Kieran Wood] Whoa.
[Joo Lages] Let's go get it.
[Kieran Wood] We've gotta do
this maybe 30 or 40 times with
tons of gear and every
single one of them has gotta go
perfectly and not damage
the boat or any of us
or else it's game over.
[bleep].
No, don't put there,
put it down,
take it up the beach Joo.
[wave crashing]
[Emma Nicholson] Once we
had all the bags ashore,
we sent Kieran and Carla up to
recce a good site for our camp.
[squawking]
[Kieran Wood] Hello. Come to
see what all the fuss is about?
[Emma Nicholson] The island
of Saunders is home to
hundreds of thousands
of penguins,
elephant seals,
leopard seals, weddell seals.
It's just teeming with life.
We needed to choose a spot
for the base camp that was
far enough away from the
wildlife down on the beach,
that we would cause
minimum disturbance to them.
[Freddie Wilkinson] You guys
find a campsite?
[Kieran Wood] We have.
We've just been scouting up on
on the flank to the volcano,
on the lower sections
to find a flattish spot.
We think we've
found a good spot.
This is going to be an absolute
mission to carry everything up
there, but we'll get there.
[Carla Perez] Do you
think can put this here.
Yeah.
[Kieran Wood]
Yeah, if it fits here.
[Carla Perez] From the
snaps, like back of the snaps.
We have all this equipment,
it was like 3,000 kilos of
equipment that we got.
So, if we don't have
all that on base camp,
we cannot climb.
[Emma Nicholson] Base camp is
around 100 meters of elevation
above the beach and
each bag is between
20 and 30 kilograms.
Actually transporting that
up to base camp was a
huge physical effort.
[Freddie Wilkinson] It's
a pretty big job today.
We're all psyched
to be on dry ground,
but it takes quite a lot of
effort to establish
a good base camp.
We gotta put a little blood,
sweat and tears to get here.
And then the payoff will be in
the days to come when we can
use this base camp to do
some really cool
science and exploring.
[squawking]
[Kieran Wood] Final load.
That was a lot of work getting
all the gear up for base camp,
but we're finally done
and just in time for a pretty
magnificent view actually.
Mount Michael's just come out
of the cloud after about
six hours of being hidden.
This is our home for
the next 12 days or so.
[Emma Nicholson] That was a
really, really tough day.
I'm not sure there's a
muscle in my body that isn't
crying out for sleep.
Oh.
Just a few more meters.
A few more meters, final load.
[Renan Ozturk] We got a
base camp all set up.
[Emma Nicholson] It looks like
a dream, it really does.
-Grab a seat.
-Thank you.
[Joo Lages] There's
seating for everybody.
[Kieran Wood] Will you
do a little cup for me?
[Emma Nicholson] This
expedition really is the
culmination of years
of dreaming on my part.
Back in 2020, we put together
an expedition to find out
whether Mount Michael indeed
hosts a lava lake at its summit,
but the weather was
very much not on our side.
We got about halfway up and
had to make the very difficult
decision to turn around, and
that completely broke my heart.
I'd put years of work into
trying to make this
expedition happen.
And I could feel
that slipping away.
And I never thought I would get
the opportunity to try again,
but here we are.
In many ways lava lakes
shouldn't really exist.
As you move magma
towards the surface,
it should cool and crystallize
very, very quickly.
So in order to maintain
lava molten at the surface,
you need this delicate balance
between the amount of heat
coming in versus the
amount of heat going out.
So, even just understanding
why they exist at all is still
really fundamental, and we
can use these insights to
understand more about
volcanoes around the world.
[Kieran Wood] The goal here is
to use the drone to go get a
sneak peek of what we
might find at the top.
This one's got a
thermal camera,
so if there is any kind of lava
close to the surface is should
be like super clear
on the thermal view.
It's looking
pretty magnificent.
Okay, so I'm at 700 meters,
800 meters above here,
which is probably
summit altitude.
A whole lot of
condensing flume at the moment,
but we haven't
switched to the IR yet.
Okay, I'm looking
kind of down into it,
shall we swap to have
a look what we see?
Whooo.
Holy moly.
[gasps].
Now our two little vents.
Switch back to
visible quick to see if,
no, thank got for IR.
I wouldn't see anything.
[Emma Nicholson] For
sure there are two vents.
Absolutely.
Both are active.
Both are
releasing a lot of gas.
But again, until
we get eyes on,
right up close, the mystery
still remains as to whether
this is indeed
the next lava lake.
The first thermal flight over
the summit was really the next
crucial piece in the puzzle of
what is actually going on
at Mount Michael.
One of the main goals of
volcanology is to really
understand the physics and the
chemistry that drives volcanic
eruptions in order to be able
to forecast these events like
we forecast the weather.
The satellite era changed so
much about how we can identify
volcanic unrest, but we cannot
rely on satellite data alone.
We need those in situ
observations to ground truth
the satellite date that
we're collecting so that we can
interpret what we see from
space within the context of the
physical and chemical
models we're developing
of how volcanoes work.
We've designed a whole range
of different experiments to
explore how
Mount Michael behaves,
taking snow samples,
water samples,
measuring the
earthquake activity.
Every piece of evidence was
pointing to the fact that lava
was really close to the surface
and it was just
there for us to find.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Final prep
to leave for a attempt
at the rim today.
Winds are forecast to increase
by 10-15 knots in
the next 24 hours.
On paper the mountain
looks relatively doable.
It's about 1,000 meters
above sea level with
one central caldera
around the summit area.
But there's also appeared
several different vent holes
and spots where steam is
releasing from the
flanks of the mountain.
Relatively thin glaciers can
also have really
problematic crevasses.
And so there's a
lot of unknowns.
[Emma Nicholson] The ascent
to the summit is gonna push us
beyond the limits of anything
we've done before and we will
be relying very heavily on the
mountaineering expertise within
the team to make this ascent.
[Carla Perez] In this
expedition we have a lot of
risk with the volcano,
with the glacier,
with the wind, with the weather
and there is this limit,
this point when you can feel
like if a little thing goes
wrong, people can die.
[wind blowing]
[wind howling]
[Carla Perez] Hey guys,
the rope needs to be tight.
Okay?
[Freddie Wilkinson] Day three
of the expedition,
we launched our
first summit attempt.
Our goal wasn't just to get
to the top of the mountain and
claim the first ascent.
Our goal was to unravel the
mystery of what's going on
within the summit
crater of Mount Michael.
And so, to do that, we
needed to be able to conduct
meaningful field science
close to the summit rim
and that requires a more
thoughtful approach.
This is not your
average first ascent.
This is a new set of dangers
and risks that there's very few
places on earth that you have
to deal with as a mountaineer.
[Carla Perez]
With that wind and cold,
it can turn the
climb pretty dangerous.
[Emma Nicholson] I'm struggling.
Just keeps on coming.
The wind just keeps
pushing us all over the place.
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson] We were
only halfway at this point,
and we'd been climbing for
three or three and a half hours.
[wind howling]
I was getting fatigued.
I was stumbling
over my crampons.
I knelt down just for a moment.
I just needed that reminder to
myself that this is something
that I dreamed about
for however many years.
I'd prepared for.
And that this was just something
that I needed to push through.
[Carla Perez] Emma,
how are you?
[Emma Nicholson] I'm okay.
[Carla Perez] Are you okay?
Do you want to keep going?
[Emma Nicholson]
I want to keep going.
[Emma Nicholson] I wanted
to feel strong,
I wanted to feel in control and
I didn't want to feel that
I had any risk of being the
reason why the team
didn't make it to the summit.
[Emma Nicholson] It will
not break me!
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Nice work, Emma!
I think it's like
100 meters to the rim.
We're getting close.
Really good job
pushing through.
[Emma Nicholson]
Getting so close!
So close!
[Emma Nicholson] Woo-hoo!
[Freddie ] That's a first ascent
on Mt. Michael, Emma.
[Emma Nicholson] First ascent,
oh my god.
[Emma Nicholson] Oh my god.
[Emma Nicholson] I've waited
so many years for this,
so many years.
[Emma Nicholson] The joy and
the relief and the pride at
reaching the summit and
achieving that something that,
I mean, I'd dreamt about years
was an incredible feeling.
[Emma Nicholson]
Thank you, Carla,
thank you, Freddie,
thank you, Kieran.
[Emma Nicholson] Thank you.
Oh.
[gases hissing]
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson]
Can you hear me?
We have two options.
Option A, here.
Option B, back in the
hollow where we were.
A or B?
B, okay.
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson] Our main
objective now is to get our
instruments right into
the heart of the gas plume.
To be able to then see a
really clear picture of
what is happening in the
volcano deep below.
[wind howling]
I can smell that.
Yeah, I can smell
plenty of gas here.
We should go here.
This is a good spot.
[Emma] We're collecting
samples of the gas plume
emitted from the volcano,
which we can smell and taste.
[Emma Nicholson] Volcanic
gases are the fuel that drives
explosive eruptions.
One of the main challenges in
volcanology is understanding
these transitions
between passive behavior,
where a volcano is
quiet or dormant,
versus these rapid transitions
to then explosive behavior.
Measuring gases is one of the
key ways that we can use
lava lakes for forecasting.
[Emma Nicholson] That will
now run for may half an hour,
45 minutes, so we can
get a really good sample.
[Emma Nicholson] Now, our
main objective is to get to the
crater rim to be able to
confirm what's inside.
[wind howling]
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Can't see anything.
[Emma Nicholson]
No. I can't see a thing!
[Carla Perez] The
weather was really bad,
there was zero visibility,
so we don't know if we were
actually in the real
summit or even in the crater.
We didn't know that.
And all that area
can be very dangerous.
[Freddie Wilkinson] It
seems like there's a significant
drop-off right there.
[Emma Nicholson] We'd seen in
front of us a crack that could
have been a crevasse
or it could have been
the side of the crater.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Visibility is still an issue.
Until we get more information,
we're gonna belay you out,
so you can continue to
explore and take measurements.
[Emma Nicholson] So this
is our base camp.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
This is our base camp.
[Kieran Wood] Sounds good.
I've got thermal camera ready
to go,
so if there's a drop off
it would be nice to maybe go see
if we can point it down a bit.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we're gonna
put Kieran on belay.
[Kieran Wood] We had to make
decisions on the fly to get the
best out of a bad situation.
No-one's been there,
there's no maps,
there's no routes to
get to this location.
So, it was a really
exploratory moment to go and
discover the undiscovered.
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson]
What do you see?
[Kieran Wood] I see very little.
[Emma Nicholson] Okay,
go to the end of your belay,
see what you can
see and then return.
Anything on the
thermal imaging?
[Kieran Wood]
Nothing on thermal camera.
Coming back! Coming back!
It was just going down,
got a bit steeper,
I couldn't see where it went
after that, I ran out of rope.
[Emma Nicholson] It's so
incredibly frustrating to be
so close to what we
think is the crater edge,
but we just can't see.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Here,
dealing with a combination of
the wind, the temperature
and the humidity,
life is measured in hours.
The ice, it's not just forming
on the summit of the mountain,
it's forming on your body and
forming on your external layers
and, over time, that moisture
gets closer to your core and
it can kill you.
[Emma Nicholson] I mean,
we know we're really close but,
we're completely blind.
And it's not safe to be
exploring without
really being able to see
where we are going.
[Kieran Wood] Let's do
the good thing and turn around
so we can fight another day.
And get out of here.
We'll pack and
we'll head down now.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Appreciated.
Is that good with you, Carla?
[Carla Perez] Yeah.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Okay.
[somber music]
[Emma Nicholson] I gave myself
quite a mental beating on the
way down because,
by that point,
the winds had died,
everything felt calm,
everything felt much easier,
and the challenges at the
summit had faded into the
background and all I could
think about was the
things that I hadn't done.
As we arrived back in camp,
after what had been one of the
most incredible and
challenging days of my life,
we were brought down
to earth very quickly.
[wind blowing]
[wind howling]
The wind at the place that we'd
chosen for base camp was just
rocketing through and
threatening to collapse
any tent that was
left unprotected.
[wind howling]
[Kieran Wood] We've just
been building snow walls,
digging in the tents,
doing everything we can
to make it storm proof.
You know, this could get worse
and we don't want to be caught
out, so that was a big
effort by everybody.
[wind howling]
[Freddie Wilkinson] It's a
pretty dangerous situation,
a combination of this wind
and warm above freezing temps.
I'd feel better if it
was below freezing.
If it was below freezing, we'd
have lots of snow and we can
dig a snow cave.
But, you know, the snow is
melting and getting blown
away from us as we speak.
Any sort of movement
would not be advisable.
[wind blowing]
It's a freight train.
[wind howling]
[Emma Nicholson] We're
gusting 50, 50 knots.
I've never seen a
weather forecast like that.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Yeah [bleep] kittens.
[Emma Nicholson] We were
suddenly realizing that a lot
of what we had planned we
either wouldn't be able to
finish, we wouldn't
even be able to start.
[Freddie Wilkinson] This is
kinda what I was scared of,
the reality, like, when you
step outside the tent and
you stand in these
elements for five minutes,
it's definitely a
big slap in the face.
[Emma Nicholson] Finally the
forecast showed there was
a small weather window
the following day.
We knew that this opportunity
might be our only chance.
[Carla Perez]
It's going to be tough.
So maybe you have
like a couple hours
just for sampling the
north side of the...
[Emma Nicholson] And we make
the most of those two hours.
We'll be ready.
[ominous music]
[wind blowing]
[Freddie Wilkinson] By that
morning it was abundantly clear
that we couldn't stay on
Saunders Island indefinitely.
[Kieran Wood] We've just had our
tent blown down, unfortunately.
Some of the poles have
just completely bent,
the wind is just ferocious.
[Freddie Wilkinson] Our gear
was taking such a thrashing
that things were gonna start
to fail in a matter of days.
So decisions had to be made.
[Emma Nicholson] There was
really no change in the
long range forecast.
There was a small weather
window that we would be able
to get off the island.
It was either now or
potentially ten days time,
or longer, before we would
be able to leave the island.
So as a team we had that really
difficult decision of how best
to use our time knowing
that our time had run out.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
November 23rd,
it's about 8:00
in the morning,
our team is
trying to get going.
It's a really
crucial day for us.
We gotta get back to
the top of Mount Michael,
at the same time we
have to evacuate camp,
get everyone safely back
onto the boat before
the weather starts to
deteriorate even worse.
So, we're gonna
divide the team,
half the team is
preparing for a summit climb,
half the team is preparing
to get the heck out of here.
[Emma Nicholson]
This is the countdown,
this is your one last chance.
Now or never.
We are really against the
clock to make this final ascent
before the weather window to
get off the island closes.
[Carla Perez] Today, I'm
not going to make long rope.
We must be really close
and focus in the same place.
Okay?
Vamos.
[Emma Nicholson] We knew that
this opportunity might be our
only chance to finally discover
if the world's eighth lava lake
is hidden within the
crater of Mount Michael.
[wind howling]
We'd seen from the forecast
that there was this window of
one, two hours where we might
expect to have reduced winds,
better visibility at the summit.
But to meet those windows meant
we needed to do the climb in
really conditions that
I would never consider.
[wind howling]
We were warned to
expect 30-40 knot winds.
[wind howling]
We were really moving blind.
[wind howling]
We just kept moving vertically
upwards as fast as we could.
Following the route
from our first ascent
all the way to the summit.
[wind howling]
Thankfully that weather window
that had been forecast
started to manifest itself and
the change in
conditions was striking.
You could see all the
way around the crater rim,
not into it, but
all the way around.
So Carla is going to
belay us one at a time
towards the crater and we
see if we can get a good view.
We'd hoped to be able to
get this glimpse
of what was inside.
[intense music]
[Emma Nicholson] Do you
think it's okay to keep going?
I don't have an
ice axe to get out.
[intense music]
[quick, eerie music]
[Emma Nicholson] Do you
think we can get down to there
with the rope we have? Or?
[Carla Perez] Possibly.
[Emma Nicholson] Okay.
We started moving down the
slope towards to where we hoped
we would be able to
look down into the crater.
[Carla Perez] The rope
is getting tighter, I think.
[Emma Nicholson] Yeah.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Unless to that?
[Emma Nicholson] Yeah.
[Emma Nicholson] But, I
don't know how stable that is.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
What if it's unstable?
[Emma Nicholson] Yeah,
I don't think it is stable.
[Emma Nicholson] We realized
that what we were standing on
at that point was one of these
precarious ice precipices that
really had nothing holding
them up from underneath.
[Emma Nicholson] So,
we can't get a clear look.
It's too far down for measuring
from the crater walls.
Very frustrating.
Oh, so close!
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Honestly, I think...
[Emma Nicholson]
You think this is it?
[Freddie Wilkinson]
I think this is it.
[Emma Nicholson] Yep.
We got as close as we
could to peer over,
but, without risking
essentially our lives,
we had to say
enough was enough.
[Emma] I mean, the drone is
really our only option now.
[Renan Ozturk] We're in this
little hole where there's no
wind and we had
the drone there,
so we went for it.
Let's do it.
[Emma Nicholson]
What did you see, Renan?
[Renan Ozturk]
Might have lost the drone...
it's trying to come up.
[Renan Ozturk] You could see
the drone struggling visibly
in the wind.
My fingers were
shaking on the controller.
Kept it on full
forward and, like,
eventually it, like,
did approach the crater.
[dreamy music]
[Emma Nicholson] Oh, it's yes.
It's there.
[Renan Ozturk]
Is that a lava lake?
[Emma Nicholson] Yes,
just very, very deep.
[Renan Ozturk] Wow!
Wow, that looks crazy.
[Renan Ozturk] You could see
this eye of lava down at the
bottom of the crater.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Look at that thing.
[Carla Perez] Wow.
[Emma Nicholson] Until this
moment we were seeing a proxy
for lava, we were
seeing temperature.
We can see now that this
magnitude of thermal anomaly
represents magma that is
several hundred meters below
the surface of the crater,
really feeding the gas plume
that we were measuring.
This is just incredible.
It's very deep,
but it is there.
What we have now is that
crucial piece of the puzzle
that will allow us to use
satellite data moving forward
to monitor this pressure gage.
Whooo.
[laughs].
That was my dream and it's
amazing what that glimpse does,
it just lights
that fire and oh,
I know it's down there now.
We achieved not only a
first ascent of Mount Michael,
we managed to collect valuable
scientific data that will
help us to understand much more
about how volcanoes work
around the world.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
Amazing, yeah Emma.
[Emma Nicholson] Wow.
The heart of the beast.
[Freddie Wilkinson]
The heart of the beast.
[upbeat music]
[Emma Nicholson] I just
don't wanna leave this place.
It's a very special moment that
I'll remember for
the rest of my life.
[music plays through credits]