2015/03 Hawaii trip - Kilauea caldera |
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Thursday February 26th
We had a dry and sunny morning, with no snails in the shower. We were going to head 20 miles up to the summit of Kilauea, the volcano responsible for all 
the recent activity. Although it’s destroyed a lot of property it’s rarely hurt anyone. It mostly oozes lava, sometimes spews it in a great fountain, and occasionally blows rocks in the air. It never explodes like Mount St Helens did. Climbing from sea level up to 4000 feet I expected the volcano to loom over us but these shield volcanos have gentle slopes and Kilauea doesn’t appear as a mountain from any direction.
We entered the Hawaii Volcanoes park and stopped at the Volcano House lodge, drinking very civilized lattes in the lounge and looking out 400 feet above the two miles of black lava plain that is Kilauea’s caldera. On the far side of the caldera is the 
smoking Halema’uma’u crater with its lake of molten lava.
Apparently, the lake goes up and down but it’s not visible from the caldera rim.
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Sulphur Banks (6.55) |
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We could see steam coming from the caldera’s cliff off to our right and that’s where we headed, hiking into a Yellowstone-like valley with roaring steam vents, yellow sulphur crystals, and strange brown rocks of haematite.
As always we found the new trees and flowers and birds fascinating, but the park’s signs have a recurring theme of the problem of 
invasive species. The remote islands had accumulated an odd mix of species blown or drifted in, and these had evolved in isolation, but then we humans came along with our cats and rats and dogs and goats and pigs and plants and created chaos. 
Then we Europeans brought in mosquito larvae in a water barrel, and later on, birds infected with avian malaria, and the combination has been devastating for the local birds. There are still plenty of colourful birds around, like this saffron finch, but its 
species came from South America, not Hawaii.
We hiked a few trails around the caldera walls, lots of ups and downs, steam vents and some pretty (native) ohia trees with bright red blossoms (on the right), similar to Australia’s hakeas. We drove to the Jagger Museum, the closest spot to the Halema’uma’u crater.
The road has been closed beyond there since the 2008 eruption because the crater now emits prodigious quantities of sulphur dioxide, a deadly gas. We assumed that a change in the wind would cause us all to have to leave the park in a hurry.
We couldn’t see the lava lake, home of the goddess Pele, just the steam and smoke coming out of it, but we planned to come back one evening to see the lake’s glow. This side view of the caldera’s cliffs at Jagger give on idea of scale.
Above the distant eastern cliff of the caldera was what appeared to be a bare cinder cone, separated by forest from the caldera. Off to the north and above us was the other active volcano Mauna Loa, mostly hidden by clouds. Off in the far north was another gigantic mountain, possibly Mauna Kea. Spectacular as this caldera was, the view just emphasized that it was only a 
small part of the gigantic volcanic system that built the island.
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Jagger overlook (7.22) |
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Further along the cliffs were these steam vents, formed by rainwater that had percolated down until it hot lava and then came boiling back to the surface: a place to step carefully.
We had a little light left and we drove down the Chain of Craters road to Kilauea Iki, another crater, this time with an adjacent cinder cone towering over the crater’s walls. This was the cone we’d seem from the Jagger Museum, though we hadn’t seen this crater at all, a good
size even if it was called Iki (small). We didn’t have time for the hikes there, but took the short walk through the nearby Thurston lava tube. The tops of lava flows cool and harden, but the insulated core of the flow continues underground, sometimes all the way to the sea. When the flow stops the tube may be left empty, a place for creepy crawlies to set up home; this particular tube was lit, a nice touch, as black ceilings are hard to see but easy to hit.
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Thurston lava tube (8.37) |
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We shared the tube with some little kids, obviously tired. “Mister, you’re going to have to lose your attitude!” warns Mama. “I don’t wanna lose my ‘tude!” 
wails the little boy.
Outside the tube, this Kalij hen pheasant, an import from the Himalayas, was casually strolling the path.
Around the corner two cocks were battling for supremacy.