National Park: Hawai'i Volcanoes

In October of 2010, we traveled to see my sister compete in the IronMan World Championships in Kona, HI on the Big Island of Hawaii. While the primary reason for our trip was to see my wee sister in action, we made some time at the end of our stay to visit the Volcanoes National Park. The National Park is on the southeast side of the island, and is about a 2 hour leisurely drive from Kona, HI. The park is amazing, and has piqued my renewed interest in America's National Parks, Sites, Monuments and Battlefields. 

In addition to being a national park, Volcanoes National Park is World Heritage site (1987) and is "living" proof of 70 million years of mother nature's activity. While I won't get into the science of it all (that's too complex for this blog, and I don't claim to understand it all), the volcano creates new land each day. It is thrilling to see land created as it is cooled by the water.

Lava hitting the ocean

Years and years of this activity has yielded extensive lava fields and recent vegetation. There are wonderful trails around numerous volcanic craters. On the days and evenings we visited, Kilauea Crater was exhibiting some activity with gas pouring out of the crater. The park service had shut down the roads to the north of the park as the winds were driving in that direction and the gas can be harmful if consumed (especially the kiddos). As a result, we were unable to drive around the large crater, only scope it out from observatory. In the evenings, we could clearly see a red-orange glow from the bubbling lava.

The Kilauea Crater

 The park's visitor center and observatory are well maintained, with sufficient staff for the busy"pop-in, pop-out" tourists that come, want to see some lava and then leave. The park staff keeps a fairly up to date diary of the volcano and lava activity. I learned a great deal about volcanoes while at the observatory, and there was one thing that I found completely fascinating. I always thought that active volcanoes erupted with lava coming out of the top of a mountain, but I learned that pressure can also be released underground. Underneath the volcano the lava can travel through tunnels called lava tubes. One of the most famous lava tubes is the Thurston Lava Tube. The lava tube was discovered in 1913 by Lorrin Thurston, a local newspaper publisher. You can walk through the Thurston lava tube within the park, one just has to imagine that it was created by liquid rock many years ago. 

The Thurston Lava Tube

We stayed at a wonderful lodge called the Kilauea Lodge. This quaint B&B is about as close to the park without actually being in it. Here is picture of the fam near the Volcanoes National Park visitor's center with the  Kilauea Crater in the background.

Graeme, Kate and Maisie in October of 2010

I was able to get a nice view of the lava hitting the ocean taken from the helicopter ride I took with Blue Hawaiian Helicopter tours. I got to do this since Kate got to do a massage, fair trade as far as I am concerned :-).

UPDATE March 7, 2011: I updated this post with some amazing video of lava activity in the park from CNN.