Viti Crater

The colour is the thing. The crater holds water that reads turquoise under cloud and deep blue with the sun on it, and the rim around it is bare volcanic soil in red, ochre and grey, with no vegetation to soften the edge. A path runs the whole way round the top, though the view down onto the water changes little from one side to the other — there is no penalty for turning back early. Under snow the contrast sharpens to a white rim against blue water. Geothermal ground surrounds the crater, and the air carries the sulphur of it.

• Wind: it blows hard enough on the rim to make standing still a struggle, and the walk round the crater is often abandoned because of it.
• Snow and ice: the top ices up outside high summer and the rim carries snow by early October; footing turns poor on both.
• No facilities: no toilets and no drinking water within 800 m of the crater.
• The walk in varies: about a minute from the nearer car park, around 20 minutes from the one further out to where the path starts.
• An information board stands about 700 m from the crater.

You arrive by car: no bus stop lies within 5 km of the crater. Two car parks serve it. The nearer one sits around 120 m out, close enough that the walk is over in about a minute — park, cross the ground, and the bowl opens in front of you. The second lies roughly a kilometre away, and from there it takes some 20 minutes on foot to reach the start of the path. Snow can still lie on the road up to the parking at the end of May, so check conditions before committing in the shoulder months.

Best: high summer, when the rim is free of snow and the ground on top is walkable.

Avoid: April and the shoulder months, when ice on the top and snow on the approach road turn the visit into a gamble.

Wind matters more than the calendar here: it comes through hard in May and June alike, and on a bad day the circuit of the rim is off entirely. Early October brings snow that sets a white rim against the blue water — the picture improves, the footing does not.