Wednesday was allllll about the mountain!
We drove the 2 hours to the Onizuka Visitor's Center via Hwy 11 and Saddle Road. The visitor's center sits at 9200 feet, and this is where you have to stop to acclimate to the higher elevation before going the rest of the way.
The peak of Mauna Kea sits at 13,976 and without proper preparation altitude sickness can be a real problem. Even with proper preparation it can.
You have to spend a minimum of 30 minutes at Onizuka before proceeding up to the top. So we wandered the store, asked questions, and read and re-read all the rules about continuing on. It's scary to read the warnings, but we made sure we had everything in place. Sunglasses, sunscreen, at least two layers of clothing, plus more available, food and water (lots of water), 4 wheel drive, and we had checked the weather beforehand, we were both over 16, and neither of us had medical conditions like heart problems or respiratory illnes. We were ready. So, when we got to the visitor’s center we did a final check. We asked him the weather at the top. In Celsius – 7 degrees, with just 5 mph winds. Hah! That’s shorts weather! But, at least we could say we didn’t take it lightly, we were ready for anything.
We were there an hour and then started up. It really didn’t seem that steep a road, but coming down could be hard on the brakes which is why you should do it in 4-wheel. It was rough though; the first half was gravel and it was ALL washboard. Further up it’s paved, but by then the vibrations had gone on for so long you thought you could still feel them!
The speed limit is 25mph, but we went 20. First, to make sure we didn’t shake the Jeep apart! But also, to make sure the climb was slow enough to try to reduce our chances of altitude sickness.
We got some amazing shots along the way of other peaks including Mauna Loa. It was cool, as always, to be above the clouds. And we even passed “Moon Valley”, where Apollo astronauts practiced driving the lunar rover. But the coolest thing was after 12000 feet. We turned a corner and the sun was behind us and lighting up everything in front and it looked to weird. The light was actually different up there. The blue of the sky, the light that hit the rocks in front of us. I can’t even describe it, but it was like it was brighter. But not just brighter, sort of, whiter. Sort of. I can’t find the right words and the pictures don’t do it justice, but it was cool. I often have the window seat when we’re flying and I’ve never noticed anything like this.
It takes 20 to 30 minutes to go up and then all of sudden there they are! There are more than a dozen observatories up there, but you can only see the inside of one, the WM Keck Observatories. I’m not sure if we visited Observatory 1 or Obervatory 2, but they have two identical ones and they can actually be used together, as one. Very cool.
There are also two that are joint efforts that Canada is part of. There’s the CFHT (Canada France Hawaii Telescope) and the James Clerk Maxwell. There are also telescopes by Caltech, University of Hawaii, NASA and others. There’s also the Smithsonian Submillimeter Array.
Once we got to the top, there is a small observing room where you can see inside the dome!
Unfortunately, it was at that point that we started to feel the altitude sickness. The only cure is to head back down to a lower elevation. If you ignore the symptoms, it could kill you, so no messing around. We snapped a couple photos and got right back in the Jeep. It’s too bad though, because the observatories aren’t quite at the peak. You need to go up a steep 200 yard trail to reach the actual summit. But, since we were both feeling ill, we had to leave immediately. Oh well, we were still over 13,000 feet!
The drive down is definitely hard on the vehicle, but we made it safe and sound and headed the two hours back to the hotel.
(Was having trouble loading pictures again the past couple days. I was finally able to add some more to days 12 & 13, even if they aren't in the right place!)
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