Hawaii Volcano National Park

If you look close, you can see one of the roosters and a chicken in our front yard. There are a ton of these guys running around the neighborhood.


Just this past week, Hilo hosted Black and White night, which is an event to support the downtown business community. Hilo usually shuts down pretty early most nights, so it was fun to walk through the local businesses and see some music.

It's a Nene! These are an endangered species here in Hawaii and some of them live in the yard of the couple I've been working for. Lindsey just read that they are all descended from one pair of Canadian Geese, pretty cool. I wanted to dress up as one for Halloween...maybe next year.

Volcano National Park

So, this weekend, my patience finally paid off and we went camping in Volcano National Park. We stayed near the park entrance Friday night and went out for dinner in Volcano (the town). It was so nice because the weather is really cool at the higher elevations, it actually feels like fall. Then on Saturday morning, we packed up and started on a 7-mile hike to Napau Crater Campsite, one of the trails in the parks back-country. The weather was sunny with cool breezes with a little misting rain on the way out Saturday. We were the only ones camping at the spot and saw only two other groups in two days. The campsite sits right near one of the most active craters, which is fueling all of the lava entries near the ocean. We hiked past old craters, across lava, and through a little rainforest. I can't wait to go back.

Brrr!!! It got down to about 45-50 this first night and we were freezing! It's a shock to the system after living in 80 degree weather all the time. I can see all the tears your shedding for us.


The trail crossed miles of vast lava fields, the scale of them is just impossible to portray.


The trail we went on was closed past the campground we stayed at because of huge earth cracks and what-not.


The lava flows from the 60's and 70's have some plant life starting to take root out in the open. A lot of the first species are native plants.

I just love all of the textures of the lava flows. They constantly change color and shape, because of the gas and mineral content of the lava, as well as newer flows covering older. It's just this constantly changing, dynamic landscape.


This here is a lava tree, albeit, not a very good example. When the lava started flowing into this one time forest, it hardened around a tree that stood here and made this cast.


The trail is denoted by these piles of rocks, or cairns, along the open lava fields.


Here is a native fern frond starting to spool out.


After the miles of lava, we entered a rain forest for the last 2 miles of the hike.

This crater was huge, and it was still steaming from the sides.


Some of the steam vents along the trail. In a lot of places, there is still active lava flowing underneath the ground.

Binzer taping up some blisters along the way.


The money shot. This is Pu'u'O'o, the most active crater in the park right now. I could just sit and watch this thing for hours. No worries, most Hawaiian volcano's are not of the violently erupting variety (ex. Vesuvius). Some of these craters have put up 1000ft lava fountains and created lava lakes and rivers, but they aren't building up explosive pressure.


We went and scoped out some campsites as we were leaving the park, and this Nene started coming after me. I'm guessing he was looking for food (which we did not give him). He walked right up to me and started making this pathetic honking sound. I thought he was going to try and jump in the car to go for a spin with us, which, I kind of wish had happened.