Volcanoes on a Shoestring at 20!

In 1996, soon after organising a successful trip to the Pyrenees, led by Bill Gaskarth (who was a OU tutor and based at Birmingham University in those days), Jan Ashton-Jones and I were thinking how nice it would be to take OUGS groups to places like Iceland and Hawaii but bemoaning the cost of such trips which was way beyond what we personally wanted to spend.

A tectonic window in the Spanish Pyrenees was a chance for Bill to show us the metamorphic basement at the head of the La Larri valley - 1996

Around the same time, Robin Gill from Royal Holloway College wrote a GA Guide to Tenerife: we looked at this guide, and at the possibility of cheap flights, reasonably priced accommodation, and inexpensive meals and car hire, and Volcanoes on a Shoestring was born! Our first trip was to Tenerife in 1997 and based on his guide: technically a DIY trip but in fact it needed a good deal of preparation to fill out the information in the GA Guide and Louise Thomas at the OU, who had recently completed her PhD based partly around fieldwork on the island, was very helpful. So helpful in fact that we invited her to lead the 1999 trip! But I’m jumping ahead.

On some of the earliest Tenerife trips we were able to visit the spectacular Barranco del Infierno - this is now so popular that it is ticketed, timed entry.

For that first trip to Tenerife we found inexpensive self-catering apartments in Callao Salvaje and it was helpful to have OUGS people along who knew the island and, indeed, the resort.  Maíre O’Brien and her husband Barry were particularly helpful, especially when one of the group managed to walk through a plate glass patio door one evening and needed to be taken to A&E!  Despite that, early in 1998 Jan “had a silly idea – shall we do it again?” So we did! And in 1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2014. In between times we managed to combine the 1999 trip with a week in Lanzarote before branching out into other volcanic islands, Sau Miguel (Azores)in 1996, and then Fuerteventura (with excursions to nearby Lanzarote) in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2017.

In 1999 Jan and a few others climbed Montana Blanca on the mid trip "free day"

At various times we’ve also based the Tenerife trip in Vilaflor, Buzanada and La Escalona – all well placed for exploring both the caldera and the wonderful ignimbrites of the Bandas del Sur. Lanzarote accommodation has been in Costa Teguise and Puerto del Carmen whilst on Fuerteventura we’ve found self-catering bungalows and apartments in Caleta de Fuste midway down the island. Although the first trip to Lanzarote was a follow on from Tenerife it isn't a natural pairing as it means an internal flight, involving a length change between the north and south airports on Tenerife. The two-island trip works much better with Fuerteventura where Lanzarote is a 20 minute ferry ride from Corralejo, using the same hire cars on both islands. We were amused to meet another group on Fuerteventura one year who had come over for the day from Lanzarote... the next year we noticed they were staying on the F-island for a week with a day on the L-island!

A highlight of the Lanzarote trip in 1999 was the guided walk through otherwise inaccessible parts of Timanfaya Parque Nacional

For me, that first Tenerife trip was a total eye-opener! I’d never seen volcanic rocks apart from one or two elderly pillow lavas, Silurian lahars in the Mendips etc. but never anything so new. The first year we did it completely cold – the GA guide, and Louise, told us what to look for and we took it from there, learning "on the job". There is such an amazing variety of ocean island volcanics on Tenerife that it is a great place to get to see as many different types as possible! Since that first trip there have been another nine Tenerife trips alone and it has been great fun finding new localities to visit and seeing how the research on the island's geology, and especially the hazards aspect of volcanic islands, has progressed over time.

On many Tenerife trips we've enjoyed walking round the Roques de Garcia, though the climb back up to the road at Los Azulejos (here) is quite a challenge at 2300 m!

As well as volcanoes, the Shoestringers spread their wings wider – a series of “Suture on a Shoestring” trips explored the Iapetus Suture from east to west in Arctic Norway and Sweden (2011), Southern Norway in 2002 (both with Mark Anderson from Plymouth), then nearer to home, a “Not SXR339” week at Kindrogan in 2007 with multiple local leaders. On the first Norway trip some of us were able to take the ferry to Bergen, sadly no longer possible, but on the second we flew into Narvik before driving first east to Kiruna mine (the huge iron mine - where the town is being moved so that mining can continue) and then west to the Lofoten islands. 

Norway 2002 - the eclogite exposure at Flatraket

Mark was amazing on the first trip - his research area was northern Norway so he was doing the south completely "cold" with just hints and tips from colleagues and had to make use of the long summer evenings to go out and reccy the following day's stops. On the second trip we started off in Abisko which he knew well and he was able to visit his research students who were scattered across the landscape!

On the foreshore near Narvik - Norway 2011

In 2006 Bill Fitches took us “In Search of the Suture” on the Isle of Man and then in 2008 we crossed the Atlantic to Newfoundland with Tom Sharp who knows the island so well. We experienced an amazing fortnight there, neatly timed to be just in time to see the last of the season's icebergs drift past. 

In search of the suture at Langness on the Isle of Man in 2006

Newfoundland's Mistaken Point where we saw stunning Ediacaran fossils with Tom Sharp in 2008

In the final "suture" trip in 2012 we wound up a little further west on Canada’s Gaspé peninsula with Brian Williams and Ken Higgs. The perennial aim of keeping trip costs down was challenging at times, especially in places like Canada and Norway but Jan rose to it well!

Brian Williams took us to see the wonderful Devonian fish at Miguasha on Gaspe's south shore in 2012

Extending the “Shoestring” ethos to mountain chains, we visited the Alps with Bill Fitches in 2000 – an amazing fortnight with an initial few days exploring the Helvetic Nappes west of Martigny and the ophiolite in the Taschtal before two complete transects of the Swiss Alps - over the Simplon Pass to Locarno and then back via the Lucomagno pass and back down the Rhone valley. Jan and I had driven over in her campervan beforehand and met some of the group at Geneva airport, whilst others drove or came by train, some camped and some stayed in hotels - quite a logistical challenge!

Pausing for a breather on the climb up to the Lac de Salanfe in the Alps in 2000. So good we did it twice!

Mark Anderson on pseudotachylite in central Spain

Following on the "sierras" theme, Mark Anderson led a four day “Sierras on a Shoestring” trip to the Sierra de Guadarrama north-west of Madrid and the “volcano” trips in Almeria in 1998 (Bill Gasgarth), 2000, 2005 and 2010 (me) also included the “sierras” element  of the Betic basement besides the Cabo de Gata volcanics. 

Exploring caves in gypsum karst in Almeria

As well as the "shoestring" trips, Jan also managed to organise trips to the UAE (nothing alliterative there .... camels on a shoestring perhaps? ;) ... and anyway it wasn't quite as "shoestring" as some, though we did get a good bargain for a group meal in Buraimi one night by a strategically judicious pause before saying yes!), and also to Brittany, Ireland, and Languedoc plus two President's trips to Andalucia in 2015 and 2016. Many of these trips, unlike the Canary Islands, involved half-a-dozen or more different hotels, hostels etc. all more work for the organiser, not to mention Jan's pet hate, arriving at a new hotel and trying to get the rooms sorted out with 20 or 30 people hot on her heels, trying to "help" her sort the room sharing out! There were a few interesting moments, like the time in the Pyrenees where we had to explain "yes, 9 men and 9 women, but we need 8 twin rooms and two singles, not 9 doubles, because they aren't couples!" Our Spanish wasn't up to much in those days so we ended up drawing pictures of stick men and women in beds!!! Another time despite telling the hotel firmly that we needed twin rooms, we arrived to find they were all furnished with double beds! "But they can share?" said the receptionist. Oh no they can't, we said and somehow they found enough extra beds!

The 20th anniversary trip to Fuerteventura in December 2017. 

We've had several lost passport, lost wallet, and lost phone incidents, we've had bags pinched from locked vehicles, and on a memorable occasion we were "ashed" when that volcano in Iceland erupted on our final day - no flights home and people with jobs to get back to who had to make a mad dash up to the north coast of Spain for a ferry instead of taking advantage of the accommodation being free and available until the flights started up again.

Despite all the fun and games over the years, when we had a "10 year reunion" in 2007 we realised when we sent out invites that over 250 people had been on trips with us. At 20 years, there must be double that - and some keep on coming back again and again: an amazing record of helping people to see geology in some stunning places! Well done Jan - you are obviously doing something right! "What was that you just said?" "What about going back to Almeria again?" ... watch this space!