The island of Hawai`i is the biggest of the Hawaiian Islands and the most recent to have a volcano, hence the furthest south. Despite its enormous size, Hawai`i has few towns and a sparse population. The big draws of the island are the black sand beaches, the colorful reefs, and the active volcano.
Most of the landscape is still black from the hardened lava, yet there are quite a few sharply contrasting white rocks lying spread about the ground. It’s apparently customary to spell out messages with these white rocks against the black background along the island’s highways. You will find such enlightening messages as “Jon hearts Kate,” “Jesus loves you,” and casual pleas like “Smile!” and “Honk if you’re horny.” Essentially, the shoulders of the island’s highways have become gas station bathroom stalls.
The big island’s volcano still oozes lava, its red, snaking glow best viewed at night. Local legend says the lava is the bubbling over of the Goddess Pele’s fury, though presently it more resembles the drool during a heavy nap.
The land near the volcano is high, blackened, and sparse. A short, weakly, green plant juts out of a black stone in a mind-boggling juxtaposition. One two-lane highway takes you down the side of it and ends at a large, state park parking lot.
At a spot along the ocean, there is a viewing area a couple of miles from where a steady stream of lava continuously rolls into the ocean. The liquid fire rock hits the salty ocean causing a permanent streak of steam to emanate from the point of contact. In theory, this is quite a thing to witness considering that newest crust on earth is forming, but in reality, it is no more impressive a sight than watching smoke leak from a chimney on a cold night.
Our group decided to hike up a bit onto the hill to gain a better view and to actually see the lava, which was not visible from the convenient viewing area. To do this, we had to start at sunset, as lava is not much visible in daylight. There are no paved trails on this hardened lava flow mountain, only about seven to eight lighted beacons spaced about a half mile apart to guide one to the furthest, and supposedly best, viewing point to see the lava streams.
The unsteady terrain causes hikers a sort of sea-sickness, with all the traversing of its mini-mountains and valleys blanketed in the darkness. The crusty surface was coated with light sand that made for constant slipping and missteping. The land seemed to swallow any light. Visibility was limited to the distant flashes of the beacons and the shine of our flashlights.
A few of the guys wanted to stop hiking as soon as we hit the first beacon. Rio and I decided we should all go to one more beacon as the majority had voted to do so. We made it to the second beacon and still couldn’t see much of anything resembling lava. One kid spoke up, “I’m really not comfortable going any further. It’s hard, we don’t have enough light, and someone’s going to fall and hurt themselves.”
We all voted and decided it was best to kill him and use him for warmth.
No. It was more for his canteen full of water.
A few guys agreed with him and decided to wait at the second beacon while the rest of the group hiked towards the third beacon.
At the third beacon, and about an hour into the hike, most of us were tired and had slipped a few times. We could view a few thin trails of red lava along the mountain and we were impressed—some enough to say they’d reached their limit and wanted to go back. It was getting late and we did have to go back and meet up with the few who stayed back.
