I will post news about Lengai here whenever it becomes available. The most recent news is at the bottom of the page. If you have climbed Lengai or made photos from the air please send me your observations and I will include them here. Your contributions will be much appreciated by those who track the activity and changes in the crater.

Photos on this page are property of the individuals named and should not be used without permission.  Without the generosity of these contributers we would not know what is happening at Lengai.  Please respect their rights.

The summit was reached at 7 am on the 7th of December after seven hours of climbing. During the stay in the summit area for about 5 hours Jörg Keller collected fresh samples of black lapilli, ash and bombs from the active intra-crater cone. This material is now investigated to characterizethe new silicate magma involved and will complement the observations of Roger Mitchell and Barry Dawson on the ash blown out on Sept 24^th.

Onset of the 7

The ash-and-cinder cone within the north crater of Oldoinyo Lengai (Joerg Keller)

Additional Information provided by Joerg Keller: "The climb is on an ever steepening and narrowing ridge separated by the
erosion rills that characzerize the southern sector. The whole thing is mostly on ashes (of the 1966/67
and of the recent eruption. No rock climbing but in the upper part quite exposed with walking on very narrow ridges.
Given the difficulties, I would imagine that in a group with mixed experience there is also the potential of individual failure. 
The track is certainly also difficult for bringing equipment to the south crater depression.  I must underline that the situation
of the mountain has completely changed. The south crater is a barren ashy landscape with the vegetation almost
completely destroyed. It would be possible in my view to camp there, but not too pleasant. As explained in my text,
I consider the north crater a dangerous place. It is blanketed with recent lapilli beds, and impressive strewn fields of
heavy bombs and blocks. With ongoing explosions it is certainly possible to select relatively safe directions, with calm
moments you will not know were a possible next shot is directed to."

This photo by Jurgis Klaudius shows the ridge which was used for the ascent. It is on this
photograph one of the gray (ash coverd) sharp ridges, the most prominent and continuous
one pointing directly to the highest peak on this photo. It is exactly the third gray ridge
from the left.  The photo was taken by Jurgis on Dec 7, about 11:00.

December 2007:  A small group, including Jens Fissenebert of Moivaro - Lake Natron Tented Camp & Campsite, visited the summit of Lengai on Dec 25 by helicopter and have posted their photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/Moivaro.Lake.Natron.Camp/Lengai25thDecember
A few selected pictures from the site are shown below.  Some of them reveal that the ash cone has now grown to cover nearly the entire northern two-thirds of the crater floor. It is now the only distinguishable vent in the crater, having covered up all other cones, with the possible exception of the tip of T49B which may be seen emerging from the cone in some photos. (So far several Lengai watchers have agreed that the new cone be designated T58 since that is the site of the former cone from which this eruption began, however, this might change.)  The northern and western parts of the crater rim are no longer distinct, having been mostly covered by the growing flank of T58.  Newly erupted ash and lapilli has filled in the flank area below the former crater rim and down through the "Pearly Gates" through which the former climbing route passed.

At great risk to their lives the visitors wandered around inside the north crater and climbed to the edge of the active cone.

The following 6 photos are courtesy of Jens Fissenebert, Moivaro - Lake Natron Tented Camp & Campsite

Lapilli and ash have deposited on the NW flank above the Pearly Gates,
making the climbing route impassible.

The slopes of the cinder cone have covered the NW and W crater rim.

The eruptive vent totally domonates the North crater.

The small spike on the far rim may be the remains of T49B.

View into the active vent

This could be the remains of T49B. Note the bombs littering the rim of the cone.

I climbed Ol Doinyo Lengai on the 31st(new years eve) of Dec 2007. It  shook 3 times as my guide and I were climbing."  Below is a photo Raphael took looking into the vent of the new cinder cone.


Photo courtesy Raphael Wolf

 " We are still somewhat shaky after the extreme experience yesterday. After a fantastic excursion in the weekend, where we visited a Masai village on Friday evening and were on a spectacular safari at Ngorongoro Saturday, we were ready to climb the volcano Oldoinyo Lengai the night between Sunday and Monday.  The walk took us to nearly 2700 m a.s.l. and was very strenuous with 6 hours walk from midnight. The last two hundred meters we were climbing straight up like monkeys. According to Vegar’s watch we were at the summit at 06:52. The visibility was so poor and there were so much smoke that we decided to try to climb down again after 10 minutes. And LUCKY LUCKILY for that…. About 10 minutes later (07:15), when we had been able to climb about 50 meters down from the summit, a thundering, ear-breaking sound came from the volcano. A large shower of rocks (many the size of a football) were thrown out from the volcano directly towards us 4 on the top. Our local guide yelled what we all already felt – today we’re gonna die….!We rushed down the mountain slope (we just had been afraid to climb up). We were running, falling and rolling down within a big cloud of dust, rocks and ash from the volcano. Vegar and I, and our guide, managed in one or another way to fight us to the right and out of the main cloud. And we continued with some crazy stunts down the mountain slope in cracks and crevasses, when our guide is shouting: The lava is coming, the lava is coming!! With all the power we managed we rushed down for about one hour, the same distance we had spent 6 hours climbing up… In one or another miraculous way we were not injured (although Vegard got some significant scratches and cuts, both our butts are fairly well-scrubbed, and we are totally beaten up). BUT ALIVE!! Totally we were 10 persons on the mountain (the others did not reach the summit and were a bit lower down than us, though they were directly down-slope from the eruption. We were absolutely certain they had perished. Being afraid of new eruptions, and with a guide preliminarily blinded by the sulfuric dust, we spent more than an hour to maneuver ourselves out of a labyrinth of old deep lava crevasses and back to the car that was parked at the foot of the mountain. Totally exhausted we could with great satisfaction see that one after the other appeared in safety, and we could finally permit ourselves to react on the incident. The last man that was among us on the mountain, had injured both his ankles after a long and dangerous rush down some old lava crevasses (the lava was luckily limited, and to the other side) and he had to be helped down the last distance by our brave chauffeur

January 2008: Jens Fissenebert of Moivaro - Lake Natron Tented Camp & Campsite has reported that the groups on the 14th January (see report of Vegard Laukhammer above) all went up the old west route through the pearly gates.  This explains why the guide feared that lava might flow down on them from above. This experience shows that the old climbing route is far too dangerous to use now!

. On Jan 6. we landed in the south crater and walked to the peak.  The volcano erupted on our flight to the crater and again 15 minutes after we left, I guess we were lucky. Once we landed we could see the size of the rocks that were being thrown into the south crater, we estimated that these rocks were less than 12 hours old, as the soil was still damp and freshly disturbed."


Impact site in the South Crater of a block (or possibly a bomb) ejected from the ash and cinder cone (T58) in the
North Crater.  Photo made Jan 4,  2008. Photo courtesy Paul Johns.

It is clear from this photo of the impact site and from Tom's report that visiting the summit area of Lengai is now extremely dangerous!

 January 2008 :Phil Benham sent photos of their January 18 visit with Nature Discovery during which they camped on top for two nights.  He forwarded several photos, one of which is shown below: A large number of additional excellant, detailed photos of the activity and summit area are posted at http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=86ee2wd.cdr2yfqp&x=0&y=d8d01o

Photo courtesy Phil  Benham

New SE ascent route.  Photo courtesy Thomas Holden

"Opted out of the climb, eruptions have been too strong, we drove past Lengai today and it was having some of the biggest eruptions in a long time.  Active continuely from sunrise to about 2pm."


Lengai erupting on Feb  6. Photo courtesy Michael Dalton-Smith

February 2008: Michel Picard was flying from Seronera to Arusha on Feb 12 and photographed a dark ash cloud above Lengai.

Photo courtesy Michel Picard

Photo courtesy Martinair flight crew

Photo courtesy Nigel D'Aubrey

Claude Humbert writes:”I was part of a party of 11 people, mostly French (one Spanish), we attempted to climb on the southern side on February 24, 2008, starting at 3 AM. About halfway from the summit, the person in charge of the group decided to stop and start climbing down.”  Claude sent the following photo of lightening in the ash plume.  Additional photos of the same visit were forwarded by Evelyne Pradal.  A report will be sent later.


Photo courtesy Claude Humbert


Lengai seen from Engare Sero camp area. Photo courtesy Evelyne Pradal.

photograph while on a Nairobi to Johannesburg flight on March 1.

Photo courtesy Max Voigt.

February-March 2008:

Ben Wilhelmi sent the following photos he made in late February and on March 1 and 2.


Photo courtesy

Ben Wilhelmi.

Photo courtesy Ben Wilhelmi.


In this view it seems that the tops of two old hornitos appear at the lower right  rim of the
ash cone.  Photo courtest

:The following pictures by Tony Drummond-Murray from 3 - 5  March are of possibly the strongest eruption ever photographed at Lengai! This shows the extreme danger present on even the lower slopes of the mountain.  The second picture appears to show a pyroclastic flow from a collapsing ash column, or if not that, a debris avalanche from collapse of part of the crater rim or the new cinder cone.

Tony  writes:: “My Wife and I have just returned from Lake Natron Area (early March 08), and were prevented from scaling the mountain by several massive erruptions that seem to be larger than any shown on your, or other sites. The volcano, and immediate environs, is definately NOT a place to be!
 
We saw several substantial emissions, each of which started "after breakfast", with a very quiet run up.  There were several massive ground strikes of lightning from the thinner  sections of the cloud to ground (the lower slopes of the mountain), certainly on  05/03/08. I was of the opinion that these were comparable in length with the actual height of the mountain itself. We thought there were strikes within the  cloud too, but these may have been ground strikes that we did not actually witness. Sadly on the 05/03/08 date, there was light cloud present before the eruption,  and this restricted views of the cone. I would not have thought that it was of sufficient size/density to have contributed to the lightning that we saw.
 
I did try, with binoculars from the Camp Site, to see if there was any "red  glow" to be seen at night (04/03 & 05/03). I was unable to detect any, but  suspect the high density of the cloud would prevent any visible light escaping the inner cone.
 
The whole of the valley between Oldonyo Lengai and the Escarpment itself was covered with a highly visible layer of light ash after the eruption on 04/03, a  process that was doubtless repeated on 05/03 too. We understand too that the local Villagers, certainly within the dusted area, were being evacuated, as their animals could not eat.

We did hear some thunderlike noises at the camp site on 3 Feb. We took this to be the sound of the eruptions, but this was our first experience of the volcano, and it might have been thunder, but I saw no lightning at this time.
 
On the 5th, the plume appeared larger, even, than on the 4th. From our  vantage point, and we had driven out of the Camp Site and turned generally  "left" towards the top of the Lake (perhaps a mile or so from the Site), the  peak of the plume appeared to stretch from the summit to VERTICALLY overhead, as  well as being distributed downwind towards the Escarpment."



Photo courtesy Tony Drummond-Murray

Tony Drummond-Murray

Tony Drummond-Murray

Pilot Ben Wilhelmi sent the following photo made 10h10 on March 5. Estinated plume height 50,000 ft.


Photo courtesy 

Ben Wilhelmi sent the following photos made 11 and 12 March.


Strong ash eruption seen from the east.

This March 12 photo shows that the powerful eruptions of March 3-5 did not significantly alter
the ash cone or crater rim.  Large amounts of ash and cinders have piled up against the
northward facing ridge below the summit. 

This image shows that the east, north, and west flanks of the ash ash cone have buried the
original crater rim.  Oversteepening of the cone flank has in places resulted in small landslides
which can be seen as dark material covering the lighter areas of older weathered carbonatite
 just below the cone. 

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View of the south crater from the east shows an ash and cinder layer so deep that previously
prominent erosion gullies are becoming indistinct.  It appears that all vegetation has either died
or been buried under ash.  Photo courtesy

Thomson Serengeti Nyumba at Robanda on 16 March.


Photo courtesy Kent Richter

March 2008: Thomas Unterweissacher made photos of the eruption on March 16 from the summit of Mt Meru.


Photo courtesy Thomas Unterweissacher

Ben Wilhelmi sent the following photos made on 18 March at 1530 local time.

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Ben Wilhelmi sent the following photos (0930 March 22) looking straight down into the crater. He reports that as of March 22 there have been no reports of activity for three days, and that a smell of hydrogen sulfide is back after not having been present for a long time.

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Paul Westerman reports: "I summited Ol Doinyo Lengai on 3/25 (pictures attached) around 11am with a friend from Arusha and a local maasai guide.  Walked to the top of the ash cone and heard the tremendous roar.  No sulphur smell but some heat.  The next day 3/26 we observed some smoke and ash fall (on the downwind side) starting around 9:30am while we were at the shore of Lake Natron."



Photo courtesy Paul Westerman


April 2008:  Chris Daborn of

April 2008: Jurgis Klaudius reports:" I just checked modis data and found that there was a thermal anomaly in the north crater on 3rd of April indicating that the eruptions are still going on."

April 2008: Ben Wilhelmi flew over Lengai on 7 and 8 April and sent many photos of the crater and the flanks of Lengai.  The flanks show newly formed erosion gullies in the recently deposited ash.  Lengai was inactive on the 7th but erupted on the 8th.

Crater on April 7. Photo courtesy Ben Wilhelmi.

This is cropped from an image of the flank and shows an
unusual feature resembling a lava flow from a flank vent,
but is more likely the track of a bomb tumbling down the flank
or some other disturbance to the surface.  Photo courtesy
Ben Wilhelmi.

Eruption on April 8.

April 2008: Matthieu Kervyn reports that MODIS data has indicated a significant hotspot on Lengai on April 17, showing that activity, although intermittent, is continuing.  MODIS also detected the eruption of April 8 shown in above photos.

The active north crater of O. Lengai had a new morphology. The diameter of the crater from N to S was 300 m and from E to W 283 m. The crater floor was at approx. 2740 m altitude, accordingly 130 m deep seen form the west crater rim. Two vents were located as c1 and c2 inside the crater and obviously not at older hornito locations. Both vents were dergassing with strong pressure and quite noisy. On 15 May a period of powder ash eruption started until midday. This happened again on 16 May, unknown which vent was responsible for this. After our descent we visited an abandoned Masai boma on the west side of O. Lengai. The “ash fall” forced the local family Lesele to flee from their home only a few kilometers away form the summit of O. Lengai."


Photo courtesy Chris Weber


Photo courtesy Chris Weber


Photo courtesy Chris Weber

June 2008: A fly-over by Ben Wilhelmi shows an ash eruption on June 8.  Photos made by Ben on 1, 3, 10 and 12 June show no activity.


June 8, 2008. Photo courtesy Ben Wilhelmi

June 2008:  The photo below by Fred Belton shows an ash-poor plume above Lengai at about 3 PM on June 12.


Photo by Fred Belton


June 2008: Fred Belton and Paul Hloben climbed Lengai on June 18 with Masaai guide Peter and other Tanzanians Paul Mongi and Mweena Hosa, and spent about 1 hour on the rim of the active cinder cone.  Mineral samples were collected by Belton.  Details of their visit may be seen on the 2008 Expedition slide show page. (under construction)  On June 17 a group of local Masaai from Engare Sero village climbed Lengai via the western route through the Pearly Gates, which has been closed to climbers for several months due to dangerous activity.  The climbers of June 18, led by the Maasai guide Peter,  followed the footprints of the Maasai group from the previous day.  The ascent route is the same as before except that the entire route is now covered by thick ash deposits.  The powdery ash has actually decreased the difficulty of the descent and in some places it is nearly possible to run down the mountain.  However, climbers should be aware that the route is subject to danger from above should there be a significant eruption from the cinder cone.

The alternative route that approaches Lengai from the NE via a dry river bed and grassy track off the Engare Sero-Engaruka road and terminates in the south crater is steep and dangerous. Most climbers attempting this route recently have turned back without reaching the summit. However, some groups such as Chris Weber's team have successfully reached the summit via this route. (See above report.)  We do not recommend it.

The new active cone covers the former crater floor entirely except for a region just north of the summit. The west, north and east sides of the former crater are now about 30m higher than before and enclose a deep pit crater with a couple of small vents visible in the bottom.  To the south, the rim of the new cone rests on the crater floor.  To the east and west the new cone merges with and covers up the old rim at the points where it intersects the arc formed by the summit ridge.  Thus there is now a section of the former crater floor which is bounded to the north by the new cone's southern rim and to the east, south and west by the original curving summit ridge.  This is much like the morphology of the crater after the 1966-67 eruption when there was a similar pit crater to the north and a "southern depression" below the summit, although this pit crater appears larger than the one from '66-'67, and the current "southern depression" appears smaller than the one formed in the sixties.

During the visit from approximately 9:20 -10:20 AM the pit crater frequently emitted an ash-poor plume from somewhere in the SW part of its floor.  Climbers on the rim experienced light ashfall.  Loud rumbling was continuous and occasional sounds of gas jetting and rockfall were heard amid other noises that are not easily described.  Occasionally there was a sloshing/hissing noise resembling the sound of  "lava at depth" often heard at Lengai in the past, but there was no evidence of any lava in the crater. 

The summit and south crater were not visited due to lack of time and poor visibility due to increasing atmospheric clouds around the summit.
For more information on this climb, see the 2008 expedition slide show.


Summit of Lengai behind new crater rim.  Photo by Fred Belton


Small ash eruption on June 18.  Photo by Fred Belton

June 2008: Ben Wilhelmi photographed 4 of the 5 climbers on his June 18 flyover.


Note the 4 climbers just below the crater rim.  Photo courtesy Ben Wilhelmi


June 2008:  Photos by Ben Wilhelmi made on June 19 show no activity, but on June 30 he photographed gray plumes emerging from the crater.

July 2008:  On July 1, Ben Wilhelmi made photographs and noted a small collapse of the south part of the new crater rim.


On July 1 there appears to be a small crater rim collapse on the south
(upper right) crater rim. Photo courtesy Ben Wilhelmi.


Ben overexposed this photo to reveal details of the inner crater.  Photo
courtesy Ben Wilhelmi.


View of the south crater floor showing numerous bomb or block impact
craters.  Photo courtesy Ben Wilhelmi.

July 2008: Ben Wilhelmi forwarded photos he made during flyovers on July 3, 14, 18, 23, and 25, all of which showed no changes and either no activity at all or very light smoking of the crater.  A photo taken on July 18, posted below,  shows white smoke emerging from a small area on the NE part of the former crater rim. at the place where the new crater wall has merged with it.


Photo courtesy Ben Wilhelmi

After having walked around the crater and a too short rest, we went down at 8:10 am by the same way, very exhausting due to the heat and to the ashes dust."


Erupting spatter cone within the pit crater of Lengai on Sept 1, 2008. Photo courtesy