Hawaii - Volcanoes

Volcanoes

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Volcanoes National Park is where all active Hawaiian volcanoes are located. We hiked a couple of trails over hardened lava and drove to the end of the Chain of Craters road. There, we hiked out a mile to watch lava flowing into the ocean at night. We hiked over recent lava flows to get another ½ mile closer and sat on lava hills to watch the event. Breathtaking! That is an incredible place – to think that the rest of the Hawaiian Islands were built exactly the same way as the Big Island is being built, and then to watch it live is astounding and inspiring.

A few of us hiked inside the Kilauea crater to explore active steam vents and recent lava flows up close. That was exciting – to warm our hands over steam coming from volcanic vents, and to walk inside a crater that had recent activity. The others joined a Park Ranger to hike another part of the Kilauea crater where they saw steam vents and lava trees. It rained all morning -- this was the biggest surprise of the trip so far – the amount of rain and misty days we encountered. We were expecting clear skies the entire trip but so far it hasn’t happened.

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