KIM, BETH, & ADAM VS THE VOLCANO

Kilauea Volcano has been erupting continuously since 1983! During this time it has added more than 500 acres of land to the Big Island in the form of lava and black sand. It has also covered more than 43 square miles of land in lava throughout Volcano National Park and beyond over the past 20 years. It is considered the world's most active volcano..... so we figured we had to check it out!

On the way to the park, we heard there was a volcano winery.... what a great way to start our day! We tried many different wines, red and white that are made on the volcano. Some were great and some were.... interesting. But, it was free and we even bought a few bottles to take with us.

Here we are outside the winery:

The park itself is huge..... over 520 square miles. We started out by driving to the Kilauea Caldera which is at the top. On the way there are are multiple scenic points where you can get out and walk around and take pictures. The first place we stopped was at a place called the Steam Vents. It's basically a huge lava field with steam coming up through the cracks. The lava below us heats the air and creates the steam you see.

Here's a video clip of the Steam Vents:

The caldera itself resulted from the collapse of the land around one of the volcanic explosions. It was pretty cloudy and raining when we first got up there. At the end of our day in the park, we went back up to the top and had a drink at the Lava House Bar. The weather was much nicer and we got some really awesome pictures.... it's huge!

Next we stopped at the Thurston Lava Tube. This is how lava travels, apparently. Since Kilauea is still erupting, you would think you would see massive amounts of lava gushing down an enormous mountain with people running to save their lives. This is not how it is. Instead, the lava travels in tubes, so most of the time you can't even see it. There are certain places, especially at night, that you can actually see it.... but we'll get to that. Here we are inside the lava tube.... obviously this one no longer has lava running through it.... err.... we hope!

Here we are outside the lava tube. You can see that the eruption that formed this tube was a very long time ago because life has sprung up and formed a rain forest.

Next, we headed down the Chain of Craters Road. This is a driving trip down the volcano that ends at the water where the lava entered. It's hard to picture what this must of looked like before the eruption. Here are lava tubes running right across what used to be a road:

Kim playing in the lava rocks:

Jumping over large cracks in the lava:

This is a natural arch formed by the lava rocks:

After playing on the lava rocks, we did a very short hike through newer forest in the Volcano National Park (we can still barely walk from our Waimea Canyon adventure!)
You can see in this post that one minute we have our ponchos on, and the next minute it's sunny and we look hot. At different elevations and different sides of the volcano, the weather varies a lot. It was really warm and sunny down at the end of the Chain of Craters Road, but a little chilly and raining closer to the top.

The more we kept seeing all of these lava rocks, we wondered..... would we ever get to see flowing lava? The answer is YES! That night we drove out to a black sand beach where we had heard that you would be able to see lava flowing into the water. It was pretty cool.... you could see Pu'u'o'o from the beach. Pu'u'o'o (pronounced poo -ooh- oh -oh) is where Kilauea is actually erupting. From there the lava seemed to disappear for miles (apparently in lava tubes). But down the beach (probably about a mile) you could see if flowing into the water. You can kind of see Pu'u'o'o in this picture, up and to the right of Kim's head.
But, you can see the lava entering the water much better in this video. Obviously it's kind of dark and we aren't professionals, so this is the best we could get!


The next day, Adam had his first day of work..... poor guy! But I lucked out and didn't have to start until the following week. This gave Kim and I a chance to continue on our volcano adventure for one more day. We decided to head back to a black sand beach, since we couldn't really see where we were the night before and neither of us had seen a black sand beach before. We went to Kaimu Beach. This beach was formed in 1990 when a particularly explosive eruption devastated the town of Kalapana. The old beach, was sprinkled with gorgeous palm trees and was considered one of the best black sand beaches in the world. Today, the trees are gone, but residents have begun planting coconut trees in their place. You can't swim here because the water is too dangerous... but here we are:

Waves crashing up on the beach:

Black sand up close.... in case you've never seen it:
Here are the newly planted coconut trees along the beach:

Kim and I headed to the Kapoho Tide Pools next, but I didn't get any pictures. I think Kim did though, so Kim, if you're reading this then send me your pictures! Kim will tell you that I was a big wimp. I just find it a little scary to walk through rocky water when you can't exactly see what you're walking on.... especially when you know that there are eels swimming around. We didn't have any snorkel equipment but one of the snorkelers let us borrow her mask so we could see what we were missing. It was pretty amazing. Just when we were feeling bad we didn't have our own snorkel equipment, it began to rain. A lot of the snorkelers didn't even seem to notice.... but where I come from, if it's raining, you get out of the water. There aren't too many lightening storms in Hawaii though, so maybe I'll have to fight that instinct in the future.

That concludes Kim's visit to Hawaii.... we had an awesome time exploring with her. She's the kind of traveler that will try anything and go anywhere.... so laid back. Thanks for coming Kim!