This was an awesome day!

First, another photo of the residential areas of Volcano that we were staying in. It’s like someone built a town in the middle of a jungle and cut it all away for roads, as close as possible.

After putting our laundry in the dryer we drove over to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to check out the visitor center and see our first real stop – the Halemu’amu’u Crater, which has been erupting for a few years now. It’s a bit of a smoking crater next to the Jagger Museum, and pretty cool looking off in the distance.

We picked up the laundry and went back to the park. Our first stop was supposed to be the Thurston Lava Tube, but we saw some people wandering through a crater on our way there and decided to do that hike instead. It was about a 4 mile (it’s all in miles…) hike, taking us about 2 hours. You start with a switchback down through a jungle.

And continue until you hit the crater floor, where you hike across the crater. This is the Kileaua Iki hike, apparently a moderate to challenging hike, possibly because of some heavy uphill and some uneven volcanic rock.

That was a long and exhausting hike, from two folks who don’t hike that much. We stopped at the air conditioned car for a bit and had some food. Then drove to the Thurston Lava Tube, 5 minutes down the road. This place is pretty badass. Apparently created when the top of the lava cools faster than the flowing bit, which eventually creates a tube when the lava stops flowing.

After the tube, we went to another shorter hike up to Pu’u Huluhulu. A 30-40 minute hike through some volcanic rock up to a steeper green and switchbacked hill. At the top of Pu’u we were treated to a pretty nice view of many of the surrounding craters. (for some reason I don’t have a photo from there…). While at the top we spoke with a gentleman who was pointing at a nearby smoking area and noted that it was probably only a half hour out from where we were. At the bottom of the grassy area, Miranda and I decided to do the hike. It was a little uphill, but gently sloping and easy to follow out and back.

Once at the top, we were treated to an amazing view. I’m hoping to find some panorama software to stitch these photos together when I get home. Apparently 500 feet across and 400 feet deep, the Mauna Ulu crater is an amazing site. Also surrounded by tons of smoking vents, which were warm and wet when you put your hand near them.

A longer walk back down than we had expected, but well worth it.

We went home and had some food and showered from our hikes. We gathered our photography items and bundled up in jackets, long pants and shoes and headed back to the park for some photos.

It turns out that Halemu’amu’u is super pretty at night. And you can see the stars with no troubles, since there is no light pollution around. Miranda got some even better photos today, hopefully I’ll be able to share them. 🙂