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Today the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes (i.e. the Valley) offers a chance to explore a landscape created by the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The beauty, scale, wildness, and mystery of the Valley make it one of the best places in the world to study the violence of volcanic eruptions and experience the raw power of nature. (source nps.gov)
In 1912, the largest volcanic eruption of the century blasted away for three days in a remote patch of southwest Alaska. The eruption blackened the skies over Kodiak, nearly 100 miles away, and covered the village in a quilt of ash two feet deep. Residents in Juneau, 750 miles away, heard the explosion an hour after it blasted. The eruption eventually tarnished brass in California and Colorado, and lowered the earth’s average temperature that year by two degrees Fahrenheit. (source Lonely Planet)
Although the eruption was a century ago, one of its more visually astounding effects remains. In the middle of Katmai National Park and Preserve, a 6395-sq-mile swatch of wilderness known mainly for its bear watching and salmon fishing, a wide, ash-covered valley is surrounded by steaming, snow-covered volcanic mountains and marked by a surprisingly small, yet several-story-high black mound. This mound is Novarupta (which means “new eruption”), a volcanic vent and the source of the massive 1912 eruption. (source Lonely Planet)
