Photo: MONUSCO / Neil Wetmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This volcano, famous for its lava lake, is a technically easy climb from the direction of Goma. A trip to the top should take ~6-8 hours, so most climbers spend the night at the top. The park was closed in May 2009 due to the rebel occupation but was reopened in March 2010; it closed again during the M23 siege of the city but it reopened on November 2014. The tour with the Virunga National Park costs USD$255 for internationals and USD$55 for Congolese and it includes the permit to the park as well as the lodging at the top of the volcano and guides.
Mount Nyiragongo is an active stratovolcano with an elevation of 3,470 m (11,385 ft) in the Virunga Mountains associated with the Albertine Rift. It is located inside Virunga National Park, in the North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about 12 km (7.5 mi) north of the town of Goma and Lake Kivu and just 9.8 km (6.1mi) west of the border with Rwanda. The main crater is about two kilometres (1 mi) wide and usually contains a lava lake. The crater presently has two distinct cooled lava benches within the crater walls – one at about 3,175 m (10,417 ft) and a lower one at about 2,975 m (9,760 ft).
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