George Kourounis rappelled nearly 400 meters (1,300 feet) into an active volcano to have the adventure of a lifetime and, of course, take a selfie.
Kourounis is an adventurer and storm chaser who specializes in documenting extreme weather conditions. With fellow explorer and filmmaker Sam Cossman, the pair climbed deep into the Marum crater, located in an active volcano on the South Pacific's Vanuatu archipelago.
George Kourounis stood so close to the fiery pit of churning lava that at one point a splash of it melted a hole in his protective suit.
"When you see that shot of me [in the video] looking like a little silver dot, next to what appears to be a waterfall of lava, that was an extremely dangerous spot to be standing," Kourounis told the Huffington Post. "It was a bit scary. If something were to have gone wrong. It would’ve happened quickly, and catastrophically.”
Kourounis, Cossman, and two guides—Geoff Mackley and Brad Ambrose—spent four days at the crater's edge, descending twice into the Marum Crater with rock climbing gear, heat resistant equipment, face masks and three cameras. The footage was filmed with a GoPro, a Canon 5D Mark III camera and a Sony NX Cam.
As Cossman wrote in a summary for the Youtube video, "More people have visited the moon than the fiery bottom of this spectacular and deadly place."
2