Images of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park – Southern Alaska, taken in July 2015.

The largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century occurred on June 12, 1912 when the Novarupta Volcano exploded in what is now Katmai National Park. Years later National Geographic explorer Robert Griggs would name the area the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes because of the thousands of steam vents he found there.

The Novarupta eruption was 10 times stronger than the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in 1980 and buried the surrounding forest in up to 700 feet of volcanic deposits or Pyroclastic Flow. Because the area was so remote, no one died in the blast but had the event occurred in New York City the eruption would have been heard in Chicago and the fumes would have tarnished brass in Denver. Manhattan would have had no survivors!

I took the hike down to the valley floor and to the Three Forks confluence to view the Pyroclastic Flow up close and to see how the elements have affected the valley. After over a hundred years of wind and rain much of the area still looks like the surface of the moon, however, the streams and rivers have cut canyons into the landscape and plant life is slowly returning to the area.

This entire region is still an active volcanic zone and Novarupta and Mount Mageik, among others, periodically throw off steam plumes highlighting the fact that an eruption could change the landscape at any time.