…yesterdays short trip to the volcano was stopped because of bad wind direction, but my ticket for the national park is valid for 7 days,so i decided to hike on some of this innumerable hikes and to get deeper, instead of having just a short look from the car. Start was the Visitor Centre where you can get updated about all threats, register yourself for backcountry hikes/camping, get fresh water and of course to park the car there. I headed down the Sulphur Banks Trail to see the green spots where sulphur is still exhaled by Kilauea and passed the Steam Vents. This day started very clear, with a slight wind and almost no clouds. The Steam Vents made hiking the first miles very nice and magic because behind each curve there was a new hole, which exhaled hot and wet steam in clouds. I got some nice pictures, but the crossed sometimes the trail, so imagine they blow out very hot and wet air, so you can get burned. Arrived on the edge of Kilauea, standard picture from the crater, i followed the ‘Iliahi Trail and Halema’uma’u Trail, down to the big old crater of Kilauea to the lava fields from 71/74. Near impossible to imagine to hike on an still active volcano in an inactive crater. The temperature down there raised above 30°C, but this was caused by the sun and not by the active crater, which is just view miles away. Byron Ledge Trail is the first part walkable, which leads to Kilauea Iki Crater and it’s named trail. 2nd part of Byron Ledge Trail is closed due to massive SO2 exhale of the active crater and it’s “vog”. Crater up and crater down on all this easy walkable and surrounded by the beauty of mother earth. Big ferns with an leaf size of about 1m x 2m, which reminds everybody being back to the period of dinosaurs or being in the movie Jurassic Park 🙂 . Crossed the Kilauea Iki crater, passed other steam vents and walked over “skinny” lava field which was just a bit broken in huge pieces. In the old-crater i made an selfie with my teleskop stick and an old men went by and asked if he should take a picture of me. I told him, i’m okay and this stick makes nice pictures from an higher angle. When i was telling him that this teleskop stick is the best purchase since years, he answered as Holgi would do: “The best thing, I ever bought, was the license to marry my wife, it was it also worth”. Jackpot, you made my day. We both laughed and each other headed again on our ways. Back on the top there was some information walls who tells you that 200m in depth there is still hot lava, but the still cooling down and getting thicker each year. Thanks to the weather, it has become misty, cloudy and the walk through the crater was a bit more comfortable, but i still had to get back to the visitor centre. Last nice walk on the edge of the crater and looked down the steep crater and crossed the old Crater Rim Drive road which nature is trying to get back. According to the map, it was about 11km (but my iPhone said about 20km, which i think is more accurate, because this distances on the map aren’t very good) in total and duration was 3,5 hours.
First hike is now completed and i am glad that it felt so fit, because one of my goals was to hike to the summit of Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa which is about 4.200m above sea level. I never was on this high altitude before, so i had a really tough goal. The most important thing is preparation. Both mountains need an permit to hike which can be got near the Volcano Visitor Centre or Mauna Kea Visitor Centre. Mauna Loa is an 3-4 day hike with some overnights in cabins near the summit, on the contrary Mauna Kea can be done in one day, starting early in the morning, hiking up to the summit and getting maybe an hitchhike back to the Visitor Centre. Mauna Kea is accessible by 4WD cars till the summit! Yes, you read right, by car to the summit and its very common to pickup hikers on the way down. They also offer tours for about $300 as an sunset adventure. As it has become cloudy, i decided to drive an small road, Mauna Loa Rd, up the mountain where the trail starts to check out the conditions on Mauna Loa first. The conditions where really bad, because this road wasn’t high enough to escape from the clouds and get an view above the clouds. Scenic View, said a sign, which was just a lie, because i was in the middle of fog. Anyways there was a small trail to the Silverswords, a plant which only blooms ones in their live and die afterwards. This trail reminded me to yesterdays “everything is closed” because some of the Silverswords already bloomed and i was properly a view weeks to late.
Next stop Mauna Kea to check the conditions there and ask how to get the permission. On my way back, with my small car on a very narrow road in bad condition, i was wondering why people renting an Ford Mustang, trying every tiny narrow road to drive and of course speeding like hell up to the mountain, usually Jeeps or small car drives this road up/down and trying not to run a small bird called Nene over. To get to the other mountain, you have to drive all the way around Mauna Loa and Kilauea, back to Hilo and then a new ascent by car on the very good deployed Saddle Rd and a curvy steep road up to the Visitor Centre which is located at about 2.900m . I was happy that this road took me above the cloud level and out of the rain. It has started raining, the first time since i arrived in the state Hawaii and on Big Island (Hawai’i). Rain, grey colour, cold, all this words, i tried to escape in Germany and which caught me up again. So i parked my small car, next to one of these 4WD big monster Ford/Doge cars, and i felt so tiny. As i got out of my car, there was someone yelling “hey, is this an Burning Man button, yes it is, hey, did you was before on Burning Man”…. you could imagine what happened. Yes, i ran into an other burner which just jumped out of this huge 4WD car and we started to do some burner small talk. Randy is his name and due to the fact that gifting is common as an burner, i gifted one of my self-made buttons which i had on my hat to him. Accidentally a German word stumbled out of my mouth which attracted immediate two of his friends who started to speak German. What was that? Heidewitzka, Heiliger Bimbam, oh sorry, holly moly, good German speaking from US citizen? I’m only used to hear that from my love, Whitney. They told me, when they where in the US army, they where stationed in Garmisch-Patenkirchen and they really liked it there. Randys friends are Alan and David, two brothers, both able to speak and understand German. Somehow they where really happy to met an German and more happy to speak German again.
After some more smalltalk in mixed German and English i asked them, if they wanna give me a an ride to the summit and back, which they agreed. On the way up we had some really nice conversations and they showed me awesome underwater pictures of dolphins. Alan, who owns an house in South Kona, knows on which spots they appear. Alan and David are divers so they showed me more pictures on the steep way up to the summit. I didn’t really mentioned that we are gaining so fast altitude until my ears, nose and fingers started to getting warmer. At the top, it was really difficult to do any activities because the body wasn’t used to this high altitude. We parked the car in the middle of lots of other cars and “adventure” vans who brought up people for lot of money to see the sunset. Currently there where no snow, but it could happen each day, depending on the weather conditions. Sadly i had left all my warm clothes in Honolulu, except one neon hoodie. The temperature was felt like 10°c. Alan said, we have to climb to the real summit, 4.207m, to have the best view on the sunset. So we climbed the meters up to the summit and had an awesome view. The sun came down, the colours in the sky changed all the time, i was speechless. Even when the sun was behind the horizon, we could saw the glowing and the colour of the sky moved from blue, turquoise, green, deep blue and then to black. Why is there an road up to the summit? Because there are four active observatories, which needs to be accessed by car, therefore they builded an gravel road to the summit. As it started to getting really dark we drove back to the visitor centre where a handful smaller telescopes was placed and later someone explained the star constellations. Btw “northstar” isn’t the brightest star on the sky. It is called northstar, because it is placed directly over the north pole and the sky is rotating around them. I have never sawn such a bright, clear and awesome sky in the norther hemisphere ever. You could see so many details, without air pollution, pollution by light and interference by air. That was the best day since years! Last but not least i exchanged my mobile number with Alan, because he wanted to tell me where the dolphins are swimming, in the next days. He added in the same way, that i could camp in their backyard if i like. I said “Auf wiedersehen”, because i had to get back in time to my tent and hostel before they close the kitchen, to get some food. High altitude and hiking made me really hungry…