Today was our visit to Volcano National Park on the south west end of the island. We took another drive across Saddle Road as the fastest route to that side of the island. The Kona end was much better in the daylight than in the dark of the night before. It’s still almost a two hour drive across the island, though. Volcano, the village just outside the park is about 30 miles from Hilo. The entire island is actually a series of 5 volcanoes, with the youngest and most active ones in the park. Kilauea is the currently active one, although only one of the remaining 4 are considered extinct. Mauna Kea is considered dormant since it hasn’t erupted in 4000 years but is expected to do so at some point in the future.
Kilauea Caldera is the main focus of the park. A caldera is any crater wider than 1 mile wide. Since it is an active volcano, parts of the park were closed due to high levels of sulfur dioxide. Despite that, we still had an amazing visit.
Halema’uma’u Crater is the part currently erupting and there’s a constant stream of sulfur dioxide and condensation from it.
We briefly visited steam vents and the park’s Jagger Museum before heading off on an absolutely amazing, challenging 2 hour Kilauea Iki hike. On the advice of a park ranger, we set off counterclockwise to be able to climb in less challenging switchbacks rather than a series of steep stairs. The view from the top alone was breathtaking.
After a gradual descent though the lush tropical forest, the trail enters onto the bottom of the Kilauea Caldera floor.
On the way down, it’s fun to watch people walk across the floor of the crater, which covers about half the loop, since it’s little tiny people on a huge black field. The trip back up, while we were glad we chose the easier way, was demanding. The theme for that portion of the trip was “don’t look up” since you then realized how much further you had to climb.
We rounded out the trail with a visit to the Thurston Lava Tubes, which is basically a huge hole in the ground surrounded by lava from volcanic eruptions. This part was definitely a tourist hot spot in the park.
In our quest to explore all of the island, we drove back on a beautiful scenic drive around the southern tip of the island back towards Kona. We never get tired of admiring the Pacific Ocean crash on the shores of the island’s amazing varied landscape.
