One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: June 19, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1991_0318_GrandCanyon.htm)
Subtitle this story, "Clouded out on the Big Island"... or, "I traveled 3300 miles to see this lousy eclipse, and all I saw was this great T-shirt." Other than that it was a great week. Lava flows, lava tubes, mountain tops (Maunas Kea and Loa), snorkeling, camping...
Contents:
I wanted to see the total solar eclipse in Hawaii in two and a half years... Inspired for another go after the 1979 event in Montana, plus a visit to the Big Island three years earlier. So I started the long planning process with the first letter in the mail soliciting information.
Jim Sheppard and I departed Denver at 1410 bound for Honolulu. My log file showed 77 letters, phone calls, or similar events since I started arranging this adventure. We had reservations for seven nights of camping in county beach parks (at $1/night), but as it turned out we only spent one night in one of them!
Our flights to Honolulu via Los Angeles were uneventful. But the connection was awful due in part to me flying free on accumulated travel miles (thanks, HP). We arrived there late Friday night, and were met by none other than ex-HP ite Joe Armstrong. He took us to his beachfront(!) home on the North Shore for a short night's sleep.
Groan. If I'd known Joe was going to put us up for the night, I'd have picked a later connecting flight to Hilo. The Aloha office didn't open until just before our 0540 departure, and we didn't want to risk later flights being full if we missed it... Oh well. Joe returned us to HNL and we saw the dawn's early light over various islands.
So there we were on the Big Island, in the path of totality, five days ahead of the Big Event. Our rental car reservation panned out just fine. In fact Budget "upgraded" us to a rather large, comfortable Buick with rather low ground clearance... We took that beast everywhere, even if we shouldn'ta. Starting with a morning of shopping in Hilo. Among other things we bought the first eclipse T-shirts we saw, not because we were desperate, but because they were quite pretty.
Finally out of town, munching on a loaf of Hawaiian sweet bread; our first adventure was a flashlight excursion about 1/4 mile, 15 minutes each way, into the downhill end of Kaumana Caves. It was a lava tube about five miles west of Hilo. Fascinating winds and twists, V-gullies in the floor, pitch darkness.
Then on to the summit of Mauna Kea, 13796', 28 miles out of town on the Saddle Road, 6.5 to the visitor center, another 8.8 to the top. Surprise! They were repaving the Saddle Road, and paving the upper parts of the Mauna Kea road. It was still remarkably steep, but no longer quite as bone-jarring in parts.
Jim and I visited the true summit (a short hike) and various observatory domes. It was nice to be back on Hawaii, in fact high above it. We enjoyed the remarkable view, and convinced ourselves that that was where we had to be Thursday morning... One way or another. (But no joy!)
We were back at Hale Pohaku, 9200', the Onizuka Visitor Center, at about 1600. I met the fellow who runs the place, with whom I'd corresponded. He wasn't very helpful or positive about the possibilities of us getting to the summit for the event... Hawaii Civil Defense planned to lock down the mountain around the eclipse... So much for any personal connection.
Later we continued on through Hilo again, and then started our clockwise tour of the island by driving southeast for the night, eventually down a magical one-lane road winding through thick forest to the sea.
We arrived at Isaac Hale Beach Park nearly at sunset. What a mess. Too crowded with local fisherpeople, and quite trashy. Marginal camping conditions. What a bummer. We were exhausted too. [Years later this park was submerged by a lava flow!]
Using a guidebook we located MacKenzie SP just a few miles west, and pulled in after dark. We were prepared to pay any fine for camping illegally. We found a spot and put up my new Eureka tent for the first time.
It turned out to be a wonderful place to spend the night because it was no longer officially maintained! No fees, no running water, gukky pit toilets, and it rained overnight, but soft needles below ironwood trees, a wild sea cliff nearby, and numerous lava tubes.
A slow and mellow start. I talked with some neighbors and hiked through a warm(!) lava tube that ran just about right under our tent. We split and ate a coconut. I wrote in my journal: "We're in Hawaii and it's so rich and fun, but behind it all is the subtle excitement and anticipation of the coming eclipse. So many are here for the same reason, like John and Ed from California..." I had fun crossing paths and socializing with many other eclipsophiles.
We continued southwest along the coast to the Kalani-Honua resort, a beautiful "hippy" retreat where I'd like to spend more time sometime. Then we swam in light rain at the secluded Kumaka'ula Heiau black sand nude beach. And after that we continued west to the end of the road. There was a swath of land about five miles wide that was covered by lava in the last decade. We took a short hike to the sea across six-month-old lava that had recently eaten more of the coastline -- including the extinct Harry Brown Beach Park, which was my first choice for the previous night. Fascinating shapes, rainbow colors... Palm trees burned off at the base, with singe marks, laying on the black stone.
The authorities had plowed a connection across the lava between the old roads. So next we drove directly back inland, up and around to Volcanoes National Park headquarters. There we ran into a bunch of people, including one who I had met electronically on the Net, waiting patiently for Mauna Loa hiking permits to be issued the next morning. Jim and I debated whether to try snagging one or pass them up. Well we still had high hopes of reaching Mauna Kea, and certainly didn't want to devote three days to a pack trip of 18 miles or more in each direction. Nor did it seem worthwhile to go about seven miles up to Red Hill, on the northeast slope of Mauna Loa. (Well it would have been. Hindsight is merciless, isn't it?)
After a while we drove through the Park south on the spectacular Chain of Craters Road, down to the sea, to the west side of the recent flows. The last 1000' dropped rapidly across lava flows of various ages. There was a zoo of cars and people at the end of the road where it ran into the new rock. After seeing the living lava for myself, I can understand why so many would travel so far to witness it.
Jim and I hiked across the rough terrain about a half hour to the nearest of three steam plumes where the rock met the ocean. The magma poured out of a tube hidden by white clouds. Still we could tell something awesome was occurring. Occasional glimpses of orange falls, boiling water, floating cinders with glowing centers. It was mesmerizing.
We explored around, including a risky trip down to a black sands beach to get closer to the flow. Then to the second plume, not far away. Here we decided to spend all the time we wanted, even to stay out until after dark, and to visit the third plume somewhat further east. It took another half hour to reach it, well beyond the crowds. (We met Olaf and Dave, who'd hiked the long way from the east. I swapped them candy bars for a can of vent-heated pork and beans.)
It was worth the extra hiking. Here fresh molten Earth poured out of a small dome in glowing rivulets right at the edge of the sea, beyond a small flat below the sea cliffs. We were able to walk out on a strip of black sand with hissing sulphur vents to our left, waves bringing spitting hot cinders almost to our feet on our right, and the fast-flowing, incandescent lava perhaps 20' before us.
It was unforgettable. The earth is not supposed to be so alive and so quickly in motion. We sat back on the cliff watching it grow dark. The binocular view of it was astounding, hypnotic. The shape of the flows changed dramatically and frequently. The clouds became visibly orange, and we could almost see by the light of the liquid rock.
Finally, eventually, we had to let go of the scene and make the surprisingly long trek back in the dark to the car. During the return we enjoyed the spectacle of myriad flecks of orange extending up the distant mountainside to the glow on the clouds that marked the active cone on Kileaua's flank. Just a couple miles up the road we found, to our astonishment, a nice available campsite, one of only 12 in a small NPS campground (Kamoamoa) -- no reservations, no fees.
We had fresh coconut juice with breakfast. Not that we could knock a ripe nut out of a tall tree -- we tried -- but Jim got far enough up a small one to bring down a green nut.
After breakfast we drove back up the Chain of Craters Road. There were places where the lava slopes, black between the green trees, reminded me of nothing so much as ski runs. "Ski Hawaii -- double diamond black powder!"
We sightsaw the rest of the way around Kileaua's central caldera (Halemaumau) and on out of the Park. After some shopping at the southernmost grocery store in the United States (Naalehu), we visited Ka Lae (South Point), 12 miles from the main road on a one-lane path, for excellent swimming, snorkeling, and cliff diving. It was a rugged place, rock walls above azure depths.
Finally it was late enough that we had to continue north to Milolii, our assigned beach park for the night, in a tiny fishing village five miles down a narrow, winding road.
After several fun hours snorkeling the reefs of Milolii, it was time to continue north, back toward civilization in the Kona area. We had lunch in Captain Cook, feeling short on time -- eclipse fever, we needed to explore some more. Less than two days away!
We tried to find a way up Hualalai Mountain, one of the five main peaks of the Big Island. No luck, the best road ended at gates to private land. A heck of a view of the Kona Coast, but no assurances we'd see the sun. Well, it was a backup site.
We checked into a couple of cattle ranches hoping for access to Hualalai or one of the smaller pu'us (cones) in the area. No luck there either. The ranchers were paranoid of being overrun by tourists, who might start serious grass fires. One large ranch was putting logs across its entrance road as we drove by. I figured we'd explored 16 alternatives of various kinds, up to that point, and nothing was panning out.
We took the Belt Road up to Waimea for more shopping, and departed east about 1600 on the rural Mana Road hoping to find access to Mauna Kea's north side. The dirt road was surprisingly decent and passable in that low-slung Buick for about 20 miles, past about eight unlocked cattle gates we had to open and close. No traffic, just increasingly eerie mountainside terrain about a mile above the Pacific. Moss clung to a thin forest of odd-shaped trees, and thick grass grew everywhere, even on wooden fence posts. Fog blanketed us as we crossed to the windward side of the island.
Finally after two hours we came to a fork (Keanakolu, ~5200', if we read the topo map right; there were no signs) where both roads became impassable without a 4WD vehicle. We were still way too low on the mountain, too far from the summit, and a day too early to have serious thoughts about climbing it. But we debated it.
We watched a most incredible sunset over the cloud deck as the fog cleared, and bedded down on a lush green carpet next to the car. (Footnote: I mean really lush. The grass here must have been two feet thick, with root mass above the soil. Weird.) It was a beautiful place to spend a cool night, misty with some intermittent drizzle. We didn't worry about the feral pigs because we didn't know about them... But that's another story I'll get to in a bit.
We awoke to a sunrise that rivaled the previous sunset. Cows mooed in the distance. Warped trees were scattered about, mossy, pulled down by thick grass piles. An unexpected wonderland. Only 24 hours to go! Unbridled enthusiasm... And optimism.
Jim drove us back west to Waimea through clear skies and fog. My turn to play gatekeeper in between reviewing aloud the eclipse advice from Sky and Telescope Magazine. I called a 4WD rental place -- surprise, there was a truck available, but it was in Hilo. We agonized and called them back too late; it was gone. Ah well, it would have meant about three more hours of driving just to get the truck to Waimea, then two more hours to return with it to where we had spent the night; and no guarantee we could drive it much closer to our hoped-for 10200' trailhead northeast of the summit. So we left Waimea in rain to return to the Saddle Road and look for a site there from which to view the eclipse. Time running out, alternatives evaporating...
We discovered that the Mauna Kea summit road, about 25 miles east of the Belt Road junction, really was pretty effectively shut down by Civil Defense, even to backpackers... Sigh. We hiked up a small cone (Pu'u Huluhulu, 6758') near where the summit road left the Saddle Road. Not ideal. Back below, we met Gordon from New York and re-encountered Brenda and Dave from Seattle. (Maybe not a small world, but a small island!) All of us, and others too, driving around desperately looking for a good place to watch the celestial event.
Well eventually we picked Pu'u Nene, 6826', a couple miles west of there, at the highest part of the Mauna Kea - Mauna Loa saddle. It was named for... A rare goose.
One side of Pu'u Nene had been mined for cinders. We found a way to hike up it about 200' to the relatively large, flat top. It looked ideal (well it wasn't Mauna Kea, but we were burned out). We should be able to see the sun, 21 deg above the horizon, by 0730 the next morning. And we had a nice view southwest across the Saddle.
We hung around and hiked around with the others through the afternoon. No point in going elsewhere; we had plenty of food and water. Before dark we hoofed up to the top again with camping gear (no tents for Jim or me though), in a gentle drizzle that developed around sunset. That's when things started to go really sour...
It rained lightly all night, a cold, blowing spray that soaked us completely since we were bivvied with no tents. That fine mist got in everywhere, yes, even to the skin. At least it was warm! The inversion layer (and clouds) did not drop overnight as expected. The usual weather pattern was reversed!
At 0300 we shouted in the dark between our sleeping bags. We decided to bug out back to the car and down to the coast west of Waimea -- to the "clear weather zone". Several other parties joined us in an impromptu caravan. Commercial and ham radio weather reports were generally negative and somewhat conflicting.
To make a long story (and morning) short, we wound up racing south toward Kona. We made several tentative stops to assess the situation (and the low milling clouds everywhere). We finally gave up at T-15 minutes about 16 miles north of the airport, at a "sucker hole" in the clouds where we had a clear view of the sun.
The hole closed up due to condensation clouds in the last couple of minutes. We saw the sun wink out as one last bright bead -- then nothing but gray softness. -- You can imagine my anguish.
In the last hour before totality I had been on the ham radio and heard a report of clear skies near Kona. It was too far away for us to make it in time. The report from the summit of Hualalai came too late for us to get that far -- partly because we didn't move fast enough; exhaustion produced indecision.
We watched the eclipse, what we saw of it, from a barren, broken ridge of lava near the road. We witnessed the growing darkness, but it was not that dark. No flashlight was needed during totality. Some strange colors in the ubiquitous clouds, and that's all it was. Hundreds of cars and people along the road within earshot, but no one was cheering. Even people I talked with who were on Hualalai and Mauna Loa reported no racing shadow, and not very dark conditions, possibly due to high moisture and volcanic dust (from the Phillipines) in the air, and the unusually bright corona (that we missed, sob!) However, a couple on Mauna Loa did see shadow bands ("like being on acid, man").
I think I hurt all the more for having expectations after seeing a previous total eclipse. I know what I missed. The cruel irony is that the clearest coastal weather apparently occurred in the places least likely to have it. People who worked hardest to see the event got screwed worst; those who just happened to be in the right place got lucky.
Well at least we were there, in the path of totality, twelve miles north of the center line as it turned out. Brief TV cuts from Mauna Kea revealed it was as incredible up there as I had dreamed. Now I can only hope someone did in fact film in 70mm and put together a 10-15 minute sequence showing what we missed. [2023: If so, I never saw it.]
After fourth contact (end of totality), I screamed and cried and threw rocks. Then, drained and hurting, we went on south to the harbor and then the nude beach at Honokohau. The parking lot was the pits and the walk was long, but the beach itself was quite pretty once we got there. I met a fellow who'd been sitting nude on his tatami mat on a sand bar since the eclipse that morning... He'd had a tremendous view of it across a small pond created by the Hawaiian natives years ago for fish farming.
We visited the White Sands Beach Park and did some snorkeling at Kahalu'u Beach Park, both in the Kona area -- hence small and crowded. Later we had a nice late lunch at a cafe in Kainaliu.
It was raining again. Jim decided to bag it and head home early to Colorado. We drove to the Keahole airport and sent him off. I departed alone with a couple hours of daylight left, still feeling drained, empty, and tired; but not wanting to blow my last couple of days on Hawaii. And my adventures weren't over yet!
I elected to go mauka (uphill, inland) for the night to sleep cool and quiet and avoid the rainy northeast coast where I had reservations for the last two nights. I returned to Kuainiho, a 2716' pu'u we'd checked out earlier as a possible viewing site, 4.5 miles southwest of the Saddle Road junction on the Belt Road. I scrambled up the cone to see the sunset on the Kohala Range, the north end of Hawaii. It was a remarkably tough couple of hundred feet on huge broken aa lava rocks overgrown waist deep(!) with dried grass. I fell only once, but received cuts in five places. The sunset was worth it though.
Shortly after starting down (gingerly) by headlamp, I saw a vehicle pull in behind my car -- uh oh. I raced back, and was relieved to discover a couple of officials in uniform, from the Wildlife Service I think. They were worried about me starting a fire, is all. They couldn't give me permission to sleep there for the night, but didn't really care if I did... So I did, decked out behind the car after flattening the cinders as best I could. It was a nice, quiet night. No pigs. (I'm still getting to that.)
Clear skies this morning, sigh; the way it should have been yesterday... Oh well. I continued around to the Saddle Road and up to the junction with the Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa roads. Thence west up to the Mauna Loa Observatory at 11200' on the northeast flank of the big mountain -- the largest volcano on Earth, though its summit is "only" 13679'. The one-lane road was outrageously winding, hilly, and slow, but paved the whole way! It took 35 minutes to drive 17.7 miles up to MLO.
I felt rather tired and uninspired, not really surprising. But I pushed on regardless to start a long dayhike, from the parking lot below the Observatory at 1100. It was quite worthwhile.
First I visited around MLO itself, a collection of small domes and support buildings connected by wooden walkways. Then I followed the jeep road northwest to a marked trail junction. The irregular trail from there followed huge, creative cairns (ahus) and some painted rocks up the bizarre igneous slope to the southwest. Mostly on pahoehoe lava, the smoother stuff; but occasionally across aa fragments; that was much harder.
It was quite an interesting and unusual hike with many ups and downs, and every imaginable shape and color of lava rock. Iridescent, red, black, green, gold, orange, gray; tubes, tunnels, brittle new stone, and outcrops of lava frozen in heated passion. For a while the trail met and followed the jeep road again. The topo map disagreed with the trail I encountered. Fortunately there were signs at the junctions, and amazing cairns to lead the way across the jumbled slope.
I had quite a view of Mauna Kea, Hualalai, the rest of Hawaii (under clouds), and the island of Maui to the northwest. Climbing a huge shield volcano was weird. Only a small part of it was in sight at any time. The distant scenery dropped out of sight as the mountain rounded up to the North Pit, 13100'. I reached its northeast lip after ~2100' of gain and ~3.8 miles, at 1340. I was dazzled by the rocks and enthralled by the immensity of the steaming flat black floor of the caldera. Puffy cumulus clouds drifted past.
I followed the route west and southwest, a very long extra slog, another ~2.6 miles up (mostly) and down along the northwest edge of the caldera to the summit of Mauna Loa at 1520 (4:20 total for 6.2 miles).
The mountain was incomprehensibly big. The elongated central caldera was about four miles north to south. I visited less than a quarter of its circumference enroute the high point overlooking the main pit, a cairn above cliffs about 700' tall. The view over them was captivating... In fact the steaming, black-floored, cinder-coned caldera, mind-bogglingly large, was about all I could see worth looking at. The mountain was so rounded that in the other direction there was just sky and clouds.
I was all alone, although I met a couple of other parties on the way up. I was tired from learning how to walk on the complex volcanic terrain with minimum damage to me or it -- like collapsing tunnels. Enjoyed drifting clouds and sunlight. I talked briefly via linked repeaters with a ham in a hotel in Honolulu, about 200 miles distant. I regretfully departed at 1610 so as to be off the nightmare terrain by sunset. (It would take an excellent flashlight to spot the ahus coming down.)
Returning, more comfortable now, I followed north closer to the caldera cliff edge. I found a route down very new flows -- tortured, beautiful, indescribable living motion frozen into rock -- to the west floor of the North Pit. I crossed it with caution, past steam vents, back to the main trail junction again at 1750. Then I made a fast descent north, retracing my steps, to return to the car at 1935, about 25 minutes past a most wondrous flaming sunset over a cloud deck. (8:35 round trip; nominal gain 2700' but actually more like 3200' with ups and downs; 13 amazing miles.)
I was kind of sore, but there was no time to worry about that as I grabbed a tripod to record the blood red sky. Volcano dust, four evening planets, a thin crescent moon; and of course all the high volcanoes projecting through the clouds.
I drove back to the Saddle Road ~2025-2105 and decided to crash for the night at Mauna Kea State Park, ~5000', about 10 miles north. There was a nice bathroom there and a pay phone and cabins, and a small, easy-to-miss sign that said "no camping"... No problem. I slept next to the car in the corner of the dark, foggy parking lot...
From 2200 to 0005 that is. Then I was rudely awakened by state police with flashlights in my eyes. The conversation went something like this (I think):
"Huh, who's there?" (And where's my 6" knife I left under the tarp? Ah, I feel it...)
"State Police. Sir, did you hear someone scream? We are checking a report." (Simultaneous relief and new fear.)
"Uh, no, the only strange thing I remember is that a car ran off the road into some rocks just before I went to sleep, but he backed off and drove away." (There was a nasty curve at the park entrance.)
"Eh? Oh? Oh... No scream?"
"No, but I was out cold, I climbed Mauna Loa today..."
"Oh. Well, you can't sleep here." Uh oh, here we go! "You shouldn't sleep here because of the wild pigs."
"Wild pigs... Say what?"
"Wild pigs. When they get hungry enough they eat people. We spotted one a mile away coming up here."
"You're kidding." (I'm still half asleep and I almost say, "So that's why there's no camping allowed here," but I catch myself in time...)
"Nope. We suggest you sleep in your car."
"OK , thanks, I will..."
Groan! I tried that for a while, but the Buick seats didn't recline, and the back seat, well, it's very comfortable... If you are sitting up. I was too wasted to even drive elsewhere. The picnic table nearby was inviting, but I figured a pig could climb on it. So I ended up spreading out my sleeping bag and dozing off fitfully... On the expansive hood of the car... Yup. It wasn't comfortable, but it sufficed -- diagonally.
I popped cheerfully awake (yeah right) at 0600 and rolled into Waimea for the third time on this trip. Then I continued clockwise around the island back to Kona.
I discovered the macademia nut factory in Honokaa to be quite pleasant. I stocked up on the cheapest mac nuts I'd found anywhere, about $7.33/lb. I went north to the celebrated Waipio Valley, but it was raining buckets continuously with no visibility. So I scratched that soggy, gloomy hike and left it for nicer weather on a future visit. [2023: That never happened. Another visit, yeah, but not that hike.]
This left me with time to mosey down the windward (wet) northeast coast. I explored the romantic (but wet) Laupahoehoe Beach Park. Pretty and grassy; rocky offshore. And later the scenic (but wet) Kolekole Beach Park, under a high bridge in the floor of a narrow valley. It was alongside a cool, pretty stream laden brown with tannic acid, sporting a big waterfall across the way. I swam in the creek to the fall, then out to the ocean in some huge waves. Had quite a panic trying to get back in against the current -- that was dumb -- but that's another story. Anyway it ended well.
At Akaka Falls it was still raining. But I walked the delicious asphalt trail through the rainforest anyway, about 1/2 mile around the loop, barefoot (and wet). The tremendously high falls were hidden in mist. I must return there to see them again; also the smaller Kahuna Falls, the huge bamboo, and so on. Also for another helping of chili and rice in town (yum).
Well that was about the end of the scenic and adventurous part of my week. Of course I could tell more about the long journey home; eating just-one-more coconut and papaya in Hilo, finding a dry place to pack up the car, flying back to Oahu after sunset, spending the night in the Honolulu airport (crummy connections), and so forth.
Suffice it to say it was a drawn out anticlimax. I relived the eclipse vicariously with many people I met who'd had better fortune -- at least in that regard. Except for the bad luck that one Thursday morning, it was a wonderful week. I won't (can't!) wait for the next eclipse to return to Hawaii.
[In fact I/we returned 12 years later, although not for an eclipse, but for a honeymoon.]
(Next trip report: 1991_0818_Capitol,K2.htm)