From Bill Menke’s
Journal
May 15, 2005, Sunday. Hannah and I arrive in
Hawaii, where we will spend the next six days and nights. Sunday and Monday
nights we spend in a cottage of the Namakani Paio campgroud, Tuesday night in
a hiker's cabin atop
May 16, 2005. Monday.
After a discussion with the rangers at the Hawaii Volcanos
National Park Visitor's Center, Hannah and I take a day hike to see the active
lava flow that is running into the sea on the east flank of Kilauea volcano. We
drive down Chain of Craters Road, and park at Lae'apuki,
near the sea's edge, about a half mile southeast of where the road has been
blocked by recent lava flows. The day is
bright and windy. Large waves on the Pacific are throwing up spray that rises
well above the top of the sea cliff, a height of perhaps fifty feet. The sea is light blue near the shore -
perhaps due to coral in the shallows, but darkens to deep blue - and presumably
deep water - a few hundred yards out.
Hannah comments that there is no continental shelf here. We stand at an overlook that has a good view
of a natural arch worn into the cliff, as salt spray is thrown up around us. We walk the closed-off portion of the road,
past a stand of palm trees, to the point at which the road was inundated by
lava.
Then I remember that I've left the GPS atop the
car! Hannah graciously volunteers to run back a reclaim it. Upon her successful return ten minutes later,
she comments how dry and acrid the air is.
I suppose the volcanic gasses from the steam plume, located just over
two miles away, is leading to considerable air
pollution. We walk about two and a half
miles further, generally following the track of the inundated road, over fresh
lava flows. Interesting lava formations
abound: lava whose surface is folded and wrinkled like cloth; lava caves;
places where lava tentacles have squeezed out between cracks in lava plates;
lava tubes, their roofs partially collapsed. The glassy surface of the lava has
an interesting metallic sheen that the polarizing lenses of my sunglasses bring
out. We approach the steam plume, and
hook around it, so we can view it from the up-wind side. We reach the sea-cliff by crossing directly
above where magma must be flowing only a few hundred feet down. The surface of the ground is hot to the
touch, and steam issues from occasional cracks. Below the cliff is a low terrace,
and at one point along it the sea appears to be boiling - or at least
smoking. Geyser-like eruptions of water
and black tephra occur sporadically. Hot scoria rocks
float steaming of the water's surface.
Every so often, when the sea withdraws on the outgoing wash of a wave,
we can see the red-hot, glowing lava itself.
We meet a student from Hawaii-Pacific University
on the way back. He, like Hannah, has
just finished up the school year. We
pause at several interesting places, including steam vents, a place where a
road sign protrudes from the lava, and small islands of vegetated land that the
lava flows have missed. I am surprised
how little the heat of the lava has damaged the road. Only a narrow, four-inch band of discolored
asphalt is ahead of the flow.
About six miles in just over 2:30.
We make two stops on the drive back: We view Pauahi
Crater, an enormous and deep hole in the ground, from a viewing platform that
is just off the road. It is in a
vegetated region. Its sides, like all the craters we will see on the trip, are
nearly vertical, and its floor is covered by a lava flow; and we view Kilauea
caldera from the Halema'uma'u overlook. We walk down
a short path through a field of fumaroles.
The air smells of sulfur and patches of the ground around the fumaroles
are yellow. A platform at the end of the
path allows us to peer into Halema'uma'u crater,
itself, the former site of the famous lava lake. Parts of its steep wall are yellow, too.