On a cold evening we returned to Prince George with vivid memories of volcanoes, camping, hiking, volcanoes, hiking, volcanoes, hiking, eating raw Udon noodles by the ocean side whilst sitting atop burning ragged lava rock....and a thousand smiles to warm the evening.
From the ragged and rugged to the wet and sordid to the baked and beaming...we found what we were looking for - eventually - in the Sandwich Isles of which Mark Twain wrote of so fondly.
Approaching sunset above the clouds as the stars appear for their nightly roam.
This is all that I took from Waikiki - to add to the lack of pictures from Honolulu - that speaks of the importance of this area. We stayed here for the better part of three days, long enough to grow tired of the cosmopolitan mercantilism, groomed tapestry of cityscaped lawns, curbs and fake beaches...and long enough to figure out how to get out. We left Waikiki Beach and took an inter-ilsland flight to the Big Island (Hawai'i). The weather was beautiful, no doubt, but the atmosphere was less than appealing. Our hiking boots, tent and minds needed cleaner spaces to wander.
After landing on the Big Island, we feasted on local Kona coffee and Kona beer...in Kona, of all places! Then, we hit the road and flayed our first tent peg in the ground in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The landscape alternated between flourishing tropical forests to devastatingly vapid and desolate lava. For as far as the eye could allow us to see (and the volcanic gases!) we saw nothing but brown, ragged lava from eruptions past and recent. This picture was taken after a healthy jaunt through lava-land and back into a patch of wilderness that was left untouched from the last eruption.
Then we went out and hiked Mauna Loa. This is technically the worlds second largest mountain, measured from ocean birthing grounds to the atmospheric breaching peak. Second only to Mauna Kea, a few ghastly and lava encrusted kilometers to the north of this peak. We spent 4 hours trekking upwards, a touch greater than 12 km upwards through what appeared to be the most desolate aged lava rock...until we got higher and waled through what is the most desolate chunk of rock Earth has to offer. Freshly spewed, relatively, lava fields that tear your boots, pierce your skin and savagely allow no comfort for sitting. Beautiful and impressive, though.
This is us at our attenuated goal at our camp for the night. Behind us is Mauna Kea (if you zoom in you can see the monumental Mauna Kea Observatory sparkling on the peak). All around us, below us, above us, near us.....is lava. Some fresh (1982 eruption) and some is old (1800's eruptions) and all of it mesmerizing and beautiful. Seemingly empty biologically, but full of thoughts waiting to be though - a geologists daydream.
This is Kilauea. The part that is spewing out steam is the Halema'uma'u (hal-eh-MAOW-maow) crater that only a few days before we arrived awoke from dormancy and started acting this way. A mini-eruptive event started this exhaustive plume which, to the day of writing, has lasted for a week. The landscape all around it is lava and ash from earlier (1984 was the most recent eruption, or even activity, prior to this) eruptions. There are so many fascinating biology and geology lessons in this one picture.....so unremittingly fascinating.
Compare this shot to the one above it. Notice the colour change? Later in our trip, after a jaunt up the mountains and down to the coast, we returned to see that the vent was now emitting not only steam (heated by inner molten magma) but also ash - a sign that "activity" was picking up. It was at this moment that we imagined the most fantastic thoughts of eruptions! Nothing came to be, as of yet, but dramatic and never before witnessed sights for us as we perched upon the old Kilauea crater rim kilometers away.
So, after some time facing the frigid evenings of the upper slopes of Mauna Loa and Kilauea, we dipped ourselves down to the coast and camped three days, two nights, among the palm trees and ocean surf. We calculated that we were, on the last night, the only two people for some 100+ square kilometers - the Hawaiian coast with all its wonder, heat, sun rays, heat, heat, surf, sand, heat and, yes, clothing-drenching heat was ours. We spent the day hiking about the lava fields, trekked 5 km to the next beach and 5 km back to our beach, napped under the midday sun beside a palm tree and fiddled the day away peeking in the tide pools.
Us, taking a pause along the way home from our beach sojourn. Heat, sun, waves in the background, salty clothes and hair, parched mouthes, lacking of food, marching along hot lava - we could have not been happier. We had not eaten a "real" meal for some days now and were ever so ready to make it back to the park headquarters where we knew we could find decent fodder for our travel weary bellies. Ignore "us" in this picture and focus on the lava - it was absolutely breathtaking and frighteningly awesome.
This road block was caused by a past lava flow from Mauna Loa. It blocked off the main coastal road and to this day stands as a reminder that nature calls the shots - we just live on the cusp of what it allows.
Current lava flow from the active Pu'u O'o vent to the south of Kilauea proper. It traces a steaming path across the landscape as it flows under past lava flows until it reaches the ocean and makes its presence known in obvious posture. The activity seen here is steam rising from the lava-ocean interface, not a wave crashing.
Us, saying our heartfelt goodbyes to the days of volcano watching. This is early morning on the rim of Kilauea.
This is out of order, but never mind. Crystal pausing along the hike home from our beach camp. Again, nothing but lava and sky, with the vast expanse of the Pacific in the distance. What a way to welcome the morning sun, rising on a sandy beach, alone, and hiking among glassy lava fields beside the mother of all oceans.
Our goodbye to the park.
Then, from the volcanic peaks of the south and basking in the glare of the tropical sun for a few days, we headed north, past Hilo, through a slice of yesterday as seen through the villages that we passed...and stopped where the road ended. We made our way down to the coast, again, where we found the most wonderful black sand beach and got to douse our bodies in sun and calm. A hot, staunchly tense hike (almost) straight down and (what felt like!) straight up again - but the prize of this beach and the moments of saltwater filled swimming and thinking was more than worth it.
Waterfall. The water comes. It falls. It is pretty. There were just shy of 2.76 million other tourists behind me as I snapped this picture. The beauty is undone, somehow, but the frolicking buzz of tour buses. Amazingly beautiful, but a picture defies the reality of life, sometimes. This was one of the first moments since Waikiki where we were overcome by tourists magnetically bonded to roadside attractions - we had just spent a week camping among the lava fields, the ocean, palm trees, mountainsides - nature in its ferocious reality - and to come to this eventually made us run away and back to the volcanoes.
A close up of one type of lava - Pahoehoe (Rope Lava version...). Imagine this as liquid rock. Nature. Breaks. My. Mind.
I love it.
Geology meets astronomy - Standing on aged lava whilst pinching our celestial sibling (offspring, perhaps more properly).
These two above are from the aforementioned beach we hiked down to from the end of the road. Towering cliffs, on which he hiked down from, encapsulate this purely Hawaiian place among myriad Hawaiian paradises.
"...and then came the last wave"
A memorial for the most recent Tsunami to ravage this northern coast. Tidal wave, no....tsunami, yes.
