We moved from our cottage in Honoka ‘a today to a rainforest
cabin in the town of Volcano. More about
that later.
To accomplish the move, we re-travelled Hawaii’s Saddle Road
and stopped at the Mauna Kea Onizuka Centre for International Astronomy Visitor
Information Station. (Whew!) The weather was much better today. As we moved south, we travelled through some
amazing cattle and sheep country, marvelling at the terrain. See the interesting warning sign? Believe it or not.
Re the Visitor Center:
The crest of Saddle Road is at 6758 feet. The Visitor Center is at 9200 feet. You can drive another 9 miles to the summit
(using AWD of course) where the really intrepid visitors go to see a large
number of the world’s finest telescope stations as well as a glacial lake that
is one of the highest lakes in the United States. There is also snow there (see picture) since
the summit is at 13, 796 feet.
At the Visitor Center, we were given the options of a 200
foot hike or a 400 foot hike to a couple of cinder cones in the area. We did both.
(The visitor center had some excellent videos of the highlights of the
peak, the viewing of which didn’t involve altitude sickness. The videos also didn’t require the wearing of
parkas, which we had forgotten to pack.)
Cinder cones are essentially volcanic burps. They do not involve a flow of magma; instead
they are eruptions of gas that throw stones into the air. Volcanic rocks exposed to air deteriorate, exposing
iron oxides, leading to more red-coloured stones on the outside, with black
coloured lava underneath.
I had several strong impressions today. First of all was regarding the tenacity of
plants. This terrain is dry, rocky, and
desolate. Rain drains away immediately
in the porous volcanic rock. At the
higher altitudes, humidity is low and sunlight intensified. We were in subalpine meadow areas, and here
these suckers were growing. Some of them
weren’t very big, but they were tenacious.
The other lesson I had today was that when I am faced with
something totally outside my comprehension, I look for familiar things to
relate to. So, I couldn’t help myself
when I saw some lava that looked like a fossilized cow patty. I must admit that after that I looked for the best cow
patties I could find.
Like plant pictures of the other day, I went wild on lava
pictures. I will try to show only the
best 400 I have taken. The different
colours and textures fascinate me.
Another lesson today is that volcanoes create their own
weather. At the peak of the Saddle Road,
clouds created by lava flows to the south move inland and essentially overwhelm
the road with fog (vog) by midday. We went
from bright sunshine, to fog, and back to bright sunshine as we went from one
end of the Saddle Road to the other.
Tomorrow we will be in Volcano National Park. Now the real fun begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment