But it was a really great day.
We drove the 45 minutes to Volcanoes Park, stopping first to top up the gas tank in the village of Volcano. Gas in Hilo is $4 – at Volcano it was something like $4.50. Figures!
We started at the Visitor’s Centre to pick up the most recent park map. A large section of Crater Rim Drive has been closed for a few years due to noxious fumes streaming from the Halema’uma’u Crater.
They also advised that on Chain of Craters Road only 6 miles are open, and only from 11am-5pm. This is because of the recent activity in Pu’u O’o crater. They don’t know what it will do next or when, so they keep the public far away by closing the roads and hiking trails until it slows down. Especially after the lava fountains last week, they can’t take the chance of having people near it if it explodes again. Initially they had closed it because of air quality issues, they went from 350ppm of sulfur dioxide to over 10,000ppm when the fissure first erupted. But now the gasses have dissapated so their only worry is possible lava eruptions.
So, we grabbed our map and set out to take in everything we could around Kilauea Caldera.
First we hit the steam vents. Sometimes there are holes in the ground, and sometimes the steam escapes right through the rock. It also offered our first look at the size of Kilauea Caldera and the Halema’uma’u Crater.
Next we continued on to Kilauea Overlook. It offered views of the same, but from a different perspective, so still totally cool, and worth turning off the road for a couple minute detour.
Last on this section of road was the Jagger Museum overlook. We didn’t take advantage of the museum, but we certainly enjoyed the view. This is as close as you are allowed to get to the venting crater. This is where they closed Crater Rim Drive, and as you follow it from the overlook you can see it gets right up to the rim, so that's why the fumes are an issue.
At the museum you need to turn around and drive back to the Visitor’s Centre to check out the lower portion of Crater Rim, which also leads to Chain of Craters Road.
On the second leg, our first stop was the Kilauea Iki overlook. From this viewpoint you can start at the parking lot and hike four miles roundtrip across the crater floor. Just getting down there and back up through switchbacks and stairs is equivalent to climbing a forty storey building up and down. Then there’s the hike across an open crater, where it can get to one hundred degrees and more.
Needless to say, it wasn’t in our plans for a driving day! Darrin smashed his knee getting in the Jeep yesterday so only easy hikes for now.
After leaving the overlook, just down the road, is the Thurston Lava Tube. VERY cool.
You walk an easy path down through an ohia forest, maybe two minutes, and come to the entrance of the lava tube. It has to be 15 feet high. The first section is well-lit and full of people, but it’s cool to say you were inside a lava tube. But the best part comes after you leave that section of the tube. At the end of the first section you climb down some rocks to start the 900 foot unlit section. This one is most definitely not full of people.
We had our flashlights in hand and away we went. There was a family in front of us for a while, but as they got deeper their son got a little freaked out and they turned back once we got into the deep dark.
I knew there were people behind us, but you can’t really turn around to look, one: because it’s dark so you wouldn't see anything anyway, unless you flashed your light in their eyes, and two: because if you do you’re likely to trip or smash your head. The surface is cooled lava, so not exactly smooth as a paved road.
After a while we reached a point where there had been a ceiling collapse and it looked like we couldn’t pass further. But one guy in the group that was behind us decided to see if it really was the end. He took his iPhone for illumination and scrambled over the rocks to see if it was passable. We shone our flashlights in his path until he disappeared around a pile of rocks about 30 feet away. He called to his family once and then didn’t answer anymore. His wife sounded worried but his son seemed amused when he stopped answering them. Finally after about a minute he came back around and we all set out to cross the cavern and rejoin him in the next section of the tube.
Once we all joined up again Darrin and I somehow took the lead again and away we went. We came to another cavern but this time we decided it was probably an illusion and crossed, where we found the path continued around a corner. After a while people in back would ask occasionally if we could see the end. Sometimes it looked like the hike was over, only to find an opening. And then, we turned one corner and there it was! We all took photos, there was some little cheers, and we all joked about finally being able to say “we did it”.
Once we all helped each other take photos, we headed back out. It went so much faster now that we knew the way. Once we exited the couple behind us thanked us for sharing our light and being so helpful. Turns out we were the only ones with flashlights, just Darrin and I. That’s why they kept letting us lead!
It was so much fun, and so cool, it’s likely to be the highlight of the trip.
After Thurston Lava Tube we continued on Crater Rim and then Chain of Craters. We stopped at a ton of overlooks on the way and saw craters, different types of lava, and just all kinds of cool stuff. One dead end road had a field of lava that was caused by two different eruptions, including one fissure eruption. Sections of the fissure are still there. Of course it’s closed to the flow, it’s not live anymore, but there are places that are still several feet deep, and trees and plants grow in them now.
By this time I realized I had burned through the window and we called it a day. We were at the end of the road, so we turned around and headed home.
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