The last two days have been packed with lots of adventure. On Wednesday morning we headed over the mountain, Mauna Kea, to get to Hilo. It is 13,796 feet above ground but the full size of the mountain is 32,000 feet when measured from the ocean floor! Hilo is where we would take our volcano tour and also zipline. It was about a two hour drive that was just stunning. Stunning from the breathtaking views to the diversity in landscape to the change in weather all in a very short period of time. The weather didn’t surprise me as much as Washington and New England weather can change in an instant, but the varying landscapes caught me off guard.
As we drove to the top we caught glimpses of amazing sea views with the mountain in the background towering high in the sky.
The further we climbed the more things changed. About three quarters of the way up it was as if we had entered the desert but the hills made it look like the moon. I’m not sure if they are craters from previous eruptions as there wasn’t a soul in sight except for the handful of cars that were also heading to the other side.
As we got further up everything turned black. The rocks were very jagged and at the same time eerily still as if frozen in time. The weather, quite the opposite. The temperature dropped to 58 degrees at one point (we started at about 88 degrees on the water). It became very foggy with limited visibility and started raining pretty hard. With the rain, fog and the dark color of the landscape, it felt a bit creepy!! But, at the top is also where you can keep climbing and head up to the observatory to catch stellar views of the stars. We were also told that it snows up at the top too. This is when we learned that the Big Island has 11 of the world’s 12 climates on one island. The only one they don’t have is sub-arctic.
We successfully made it to the other side and headed to the airport for our volcano tour. The pilot, Steve, was a really nice guy. He showed us many different areas including the lava fields from previous eruptions. It’s startling how much ground is covered by the fields and essentially unusable. If you look closely at the pictures, you can see how the lava spilled into the ocean, it is a softer edge that some of the cliffs. One of the flow actually cut of the road completely.
We then went and flew over the crater into what the locals call the heartbeat of the island. You can see the large round opening and how steep the edges are. Then within you can see the smoke clouds and if you look closely you’ll see red patches of hot lava. Not quite the cool picture they show everywhere on the island, but proof that the volcano is still very much awake and active.
We completed this little adventure with a fly-by of Rainbow Falls which is just outside of Hilo Bay!
Travel4Dreamers 