Hawaii Wrapup

Now that we are back, and the tall tales are increasing by the hour, it seemed to be a good time to reflect on our experiences on the big island.  There were many highlights such as the following:

The Hawaiian People

               Are warm, friendly, relaxed, and very accepting.  Everyone is really an immigrant, starting from the Polynesians who originally inhabited the islands somewhere in 500 AD.  A large number of Japanese and Chinese workers were brought in to work on the sugar cane plantations, so this is a very mixed culture of multi-Asian people.  A surprising number of people in the service industry were Americans from other states who loved the island and decided to stay.  We avoided talking politics, but there was a group of protesters voicing their distaste with Trump’s immigration proposals.

The Weird and Wonderful World of Cattle

               This animal was trying to become feral…..see below:

               There are some immense cattle ranches on the big island, where there are some excellent areas of grazing on older lava flows, and a non-stop season of grass.  Now, here is where it gets weird.  Most of the cattle are shipped by 747 to the mainland, or by boat to Canada followed by trucking to Texas.  (Huh?)  Apparently, no shipbuilder in the US makes cattle haulers and there is an obscure US law that makes it illegal for a foreign-built ship to sail from one US port to another.  So the foreign-built ships, which are old cruise ships, make the trip from Hawaii to Vancouver.  This makes me wonder—are the buffets as good for the cattle?  And who does concierge service?

Lava (You knew I would get to this……)

               To start with, Hawaii is entirely volcanic and comprises 5 volcanoes, none of which are considered dead.  The current most active volcano is Mount Kilauea, which started erupting in 1983 and continues to this day, which is considered admirable to say the least.

The actual flows are coming from a rift zone, 10 miles away from the volcano’s caldera.  The volcano is considered very “laid back” and instead of offering volcanic eruptions, it gently flows in little rivulets.  We were in no danger—it was like a blast furnace 10-12 feet away from the flow.  There was no temptation to get closer.  Trust me.

               Our guide book provided some amazing statistics:

               The total lava erupted since 1983 is 4.6 billion cubic yards (which would fill over 300 million dump trucks).  The average temperature of lava is 2000F and it only loses 20F travelling in lava tubes (hate to step on top of a weak one).  The total area covered by this eruption is 48 square miles, and includes 500 acres of new land, which is entirely barren.

Native, Non-Native and Feral

               A lot of animals used for domestic purposes were brought to the island, including pigs and chickens carried by the original Polynesians.  Many more animals and birds were brought by European and Asian settlers (including the infamous mongoose introduced to eat rats).  All of the domesticated animals developed their own feral populations, some of which are very destructive, and some of which are plain amusing.  (I am still entertained by feral chickens which are absolutely everywhere, whether rural or urban.  This little family was in the parking lot of the grocery store in a very small town.)

There are feral pigs, cattle and horses.  (Another island has apparently feral wallabies!)  One of the songbirds introduced was the Northern Cardinal, and on most days we could hear them singing lustily, which really confused me until I learned they WERE Northern Cardinals.  So identification of some species was a little chancy.  Whatever was introduced seemed to prosper, so there are lots of them.

               One native bird was the Hawaiian Dene goose.  In case they look somewhat familiar, they are considered to be descendants of Canada geese (so much for the new and novel).

Warning Signs

               Hawaiians don’t mess around with warning signs—but when they do post them, you have to take them seriously.  Most were unique in my experience.

Road Construction and Infrastructure

               Hawaiian roads are made of (what else?) crushed lava, but road work is a really hard undertaking.  Lava stone is called “Basalt” which comes from a Latin term meaning “very hard stone”.  It is VERY hard stone.  Lava terrain is irregular, and you have to jackhammer the stuff, which is almost unyielding.  The noise at a construction site is dreadful.

Keep in mind that the whole island is lava……so there are no basements, and it is somewhat difficult to bury pipe and cables.  Instead, you will often see sights like this:

Boys and Their Toys

               There are good major roads on the island, but many of the minor ones were posted as All Wheel Drive.  This allowed Hawaiian men to be real men with real trucks.  (I am not picking on the male sex, but I didn’t see women driving these things……….)

The Challenges of Flower Identification

               Hawaii featured so many flowers, both native and introduced, and it was a colourful feast for the eyes.  Some were familiar, but I did have some identification challenges with the last one.

Turned out someone had lost their sun shade, and someone else draped it on a stick!  Obviously it was time for this tourist to go home and deal with the more familiar sights.  In summary, the Hawaii trip had “Wow!” moments every day, and we couldn’t have enjoyed it more.  As soon as they change their president, we’ll consider going back!

Mauna Ulu Trail (Lava Boredom Warning!)

Mauna Ulu stands for “Growing Mountain” which seems to be generally the case with volcanoes.  In 1969 a large fissure opened up in the forest and in 3 hours widened to a crack over a mile long.  Lava exploded in fountains up to 1771 feet high for a period of almost 5 years.

One of the features of the Mauna Ulu trail is that of lava trees.  Lava trees are formed when lava rolls up against a tree trunk and cools rapidly because of the wet wood.  More lava flows around it and builds up to form a cone which is hollow inside as a result of the tree eventually burning up.

Once lava cools into volcanic rock, it becomes known by 1 of 2 names.

Pahoehoe lava is smooth, folded or ropey, and is formed when lava cools more slowly.

A’a lava is formed when the flow is slightly cooler, loses sufficient gas, crystallizes or is sticky.  The molten rock loses elasticity and fractures instead of stretching.

This trail provided a marvelous contrast between pahoehoe and a’a.

One of the other features of the trail was the colour of the sand.  By looking closely you could see little green crystals called olivine (or peridot) which crystallized out separately.

At the end of the trail, we climbed a little forested hill called Pu’u Huluhulu, or shaggy hill, which was a 500 year old volcanic cone missed by the Maunu Ulu’s lava flows.  The vegetation was rainforest, and there was a step little crater at top.

We got a good viewpoint of Mauna Ulu, which was quietly steaming on top.  It is a subtle reminder that these volcanoes are not dormant--they are just not erupting at the moment.

One of the most fascinating things is how lava is revegetated over time.  Algae, ferns, ohi’a trees, lichens and mosses move in in that order.  The tenacity of plants is amazing.

We took a little side trip to a petroglyph site, which had miraculously escaped more recent flows.  The Hawaiian language was not written; natives ended up carving petroglyphs into the basalt which must have been a real chore, since basalt is very hard.

This little park had over 23,000 petroglyphs, of which over 16,000 were holes (perhaps 2" in diameter) where Hawaiians placed the umbilical cords of their newborns to give them a long and fruitful life.  Weird, eh?

Lava (Again!!!) But this time, there is new stuff.....

The biggest lure of Volcano National Park was the possibility of seeing new lava, so we set out to do that today.

To set the scene, there used to be a long circular road that allowed people to drive from the height of the Kilauea Caldera down to the ocean and along the water for some distance before turning north and back.  That changed in 1983 when Kilauea started erupting big time, taking out a fair stretch of the road along the sea.  That activity continues to today, which has put a hold on road reconstruction.

We had to drive a long descending drive called the Chain of Craters road, and we stopped partway along the way to start getting a perspective on larger lava flows.

You could see areas where there was fresh lava, right next to forested areas that had been missed.

The road descended a long way.

Once we got to the trail head, we started to get into areas where there was much more lava than greenery, although a coconut grove stuck out like a sore thumb.  We needed to walk 5.5 miles along a bit of paved road, a lot of gravel road, and then a lot of lava field.  Teh good news was that is was a beautiful sunny day.  The bad news was that it was a HOT sunny day.

The beacon was a plume of steam where lava was entering the sea.

Once we left the gravel road, we had to walk over a relatively fresh lava field, away from a roped area which is called a lava bench.  Lava benches are notorious for falling off into the sea, and we were more than pleased to follow the guidelines.  Walking on lava is quite the experience.

 There are other hazards.

After 2 ½ hours of walking, we finally reached a viewpoint to see the plume.  Although we couldn’t see the red colour of the lava, we could see rock explosions like fireworks, and the turbulence of the water below.  With binoculars, you could see the water at the base looking gold-coloured.  Sightseers could book boat trips to see the lava fall.

At this point, we asked a tour guide about the possibility of seeing fresh lava, and he indicated the flow was low today, but we could proceed a certain direction.  We were supposed to look for heat shimmers.

We scrambled to a point where it was suddenly very warm.  Apparently, new lava is silvery in colour, and we watched something (not sure) and then saw the colour red.

This lava flow was very gentle for a few minutes and then wow!  it started to get a little momentum.  At no time were we in any danger, but damn it was hot.

A surprising part of the lava flow was the sound of snapping and crackling.  The surface cools very quickly, forming a thin crust, which is full of holes and shiny with colour.  As the lava moves forward, pieces of crust snap off in all directions.

Fast cooling lava creates all kinds of neat things.  “Pele’s Hair’ is thin, fragile threads of golden lava blasted skyward at hundreds of miles an hour, spinning it into golden threads.  We found it all over the ground near the plume, as well as shiny flakes of golden shiny lava. 

Much of this field of volcanic rock was Pahoehoe lava, with its distinctive smooth, folded ropy texture formed by lava cooling at a relatively slow pace.  What I didn’t expect was how shiny it was was everywhere—it glowed in the sunlight.

Today has been a life experience for both of us.