Volcanoes National Park

Soon after our arrival, we spent a few days at Volcanoes National Park, which is absolutely amazing. The park consists of two of the three active volcanoes that comprise the Big Island of Hawaii, Mauna Loa and Kilauea.

Mauna Loa is the 13,000 ft mountain that can be seen in the distance behind our tent. The main caldera of Kilauea can be seen smoldering in the eighth photo down. Kilauea is the most active volcano on the planet, and we spent some time hiking around its slopes through lava fields and rain forest, into lava tubes and to the coast where the lava forms huge cliffs and a sea arch. One of our hikes was right across the caldera itself--two miles across the baked and smoking landscape, across gaping cracks in the crust and scalpel sharp a'a lava.

Above Kilauea, on the slopes of Mauna Loa, we found a Kapuka, which is an area of raised land that escaped a lava flow. A mature forest has grown up on a small patch of land that is surrounded by desolation. It was here that we discovered the mighty Koa trees growing to their full stature. Obviously we couldn't resist the opportunity for a family portrait.

Since we were camping at 4,000 ft, there were cool breezes and no bugs, and the sky was unbelievably clear. I was awakened in the middle of the first night by a bright light shining into the tent which I at first thought was someone's flashlight, but turned out to be Jupiter.

We could have happily spent more time in the park, but we are, unfortunately, working our way around the world, and we had to return to our jobs.

Two nights ago the volcano reminded us that it makes up the whole island when we had an earthquake of 4.2. You don't leave the volcano when you leave the park.