Aloha, Mauna Loa!
A crazy month in Hawai’i — Big Island!
On my friend Krishna’s invite, I stayed on the Big Island, Hawai’i for about 1.5 months in August and September. WFH and COVID presented this chance and I took it as soon as I graduated from college and started working for Intel. These 6 weeks have been spectacular! I loved the wide variety of landscapes the Big Island has to offer ranging from — rain forests, volcanoes, sandy and turquoise beaches, corals and cliffs, dry grasslands, waterfalls, and many more! Every day was an adventure here from plucking litchis and papayas in the wild to snorkeling with Manta Rays at night! It was hard to choose one experience that I want to share but here is one of my recent adventures — a hike up the world’s largest volcano, Mauna Loa.
Volcanoes on Big Island
Rivers of crumbly lava rocks, called a’a, welcome you as soon as you come of the Keohole Kona International airport. These rivers are the result of years of volcanic activity and naturally, volcanoes form a huge part of the geography and culture of the native people. On the Big Island there are five main volcanoes -
- Mauna Kea (13796 ft/4204 m)
- Mauna Loa (13677 ft/4168 m)
- Hualalai (8271 ft/2521 m)
- Kohala (5480 ft/1670 m)
- Kilauea (4091 ft/1247 m)
Kilauea is the youngest and most active volcano on the Big Island. The most recent volcanic eruption took place here in 2018 — here is a video of the eruption. We hiked up the smaller of the two caldera (formed after 1959 eruption) which was a 5-km loop called the Kilauea Iki trail. A caldera is a depression that is created when magma is flowing underneath structurally unstable land surface. As the magma flows closer to the surface, the land crumbles and sinks, creating a huge depression.
I start my day with a 5 AM huddle, pleasantly greeted by Hualalai and the rising sun to the east of our apartment. The rivers of lava from its eruptions almost over two centuries ago are the ones that greet you at the airport. Kona coffee is grown on the slopes and foothills of Hualalai.
On Aug 21st, we went to Mauna Kea visitor center, hiked on top of a hill to catch the moon set and sun rise which happened back-to-back within a span of 15 minutes.
We then drove up to the Mauna Kea Observatory which is adjacent to the summit. This is accessible only by 4x4 vehicles as the access road is made of loose gravel and a steep incline for about 6 miles. The air is thin and the temperature is close to or below freezing throughout the year. Clear skies make it conducive for astronomical research. The Observatory hosts a consortium of research scientists from different parts of the world working on astronomical advances with a range of telescopes ranging from UV to radio wave wavelengths.
Kohala is the northern most and the oldest volcano on the island. It last erupted over a hundred thousand years ago and is over a million years old. There are a few wonderful beaches along the drive, my favorite being Hapuna and Beach 69.
Finally, we have Mauna Loa which translates to long mountain in the native tongue. This is the volcano Krishna and I hiked up to!
Aloha, Mauna Loa!
Mauna Loa is the largest volcano by volume and surface area and peaks at 4 km above the sea level and dives another 5 km deep into the ocean. It is a very active volcano with the latest one happening in 1984.
There are a few trails that can be taken to the summit at 4168 m — the most popular, and I use the term popular very generously here — is the 5.9-mile (9.5 km), hike from the Mauna Loa Weather Observatory at 3440 m (not to be confused with the Mauna Kea Observatory!)
The preparation for the hike started almost a week before. We had to call the Back Country Office and pay a modest fee of $10 to book spots in the cabin at the summit. The park ranger took our details — including physical identifiers like bag and t-shirt colors that we will be wearing — which can come handy if a search were to be initiated. On Saturday evening, we shopped for food — bread, black bean patties, stringed cheese, energy bars, electrolytes — that we would consume over the next two days. We also packed kichdi (lentils + veggies + rice) that we ate before leaving that night to sleep in the car at the Mauna Loa Observatory to acclimatize to the altitude (3440 m).
On Sunday morning, we woke up to see the Moon rise at around 5:45 AM, ate a couple of sandwiches, bananas, and started the hike at 6:06 AM. The hike begin with a terrain of loose, crumbly volcanic rocks called a’a. These rocks are sharp, light, and are the size of a fist. It is hard to get traction as you ascend on them. There is no “path” at any point in the trail; there are only path markers called ahu — which are man-made piles of rocks that give a generic sense of directions on the trail. After a while, the terrain changes to a different form of lava called pahoehoe. Pahoehoe is hard, shiny, and smooth lava. It is relatively easier to find your grip on this terrain. As we were climbing up Mauna Loa we were lucky to have the serenity of its sister — Mauna Kea in our background.
Krishna and I were on a mission to hike up before the clouds reached the summit, as rain and snow were forecasted before noon that day. We walked on a olivine desert — green sand due to iron (ii) oxides — for about 2 kms and this was the fastest part of the hike. We reached the northern tip of the caldera which is called North Pit in about 3.5 hours. It is around 4 miles from the Observatory and is a popular turn-around point for most hikers. There is a make-shift toilet there that drains into one of the fissures. We took short pauses to rehydrate and refuel continuously. The thin air made it harder for us to push beyond a few 100 m at a time. Just by the north pit, there is a small depression of which although we did not know the significance, we had fun by dropping rocks to measure it’s depth. It was 100 m deep in the shallowest part.
The last stretch of the hike from the North Pit to the cabin was the most gruesome. The a’a flow rocks made it incredibly hard to pick up pace along with the sun that was right above us. The final 0.6 miles felt like it went on forever. We couldn’t see the caldera on our left or the cabin ahead due to the uneven terrain. After a hike of 5 hours and 11 minutes, we finally reached the eastern edge of the caldera and it was the most astonishing land feature I had ever seen. The caldera is about 4.3 km in length, 2.5 km wide in the widest section, and about 180 m deep.
The cabin, which was barely more than four walls/shack, managed to be cozy with 12 plastic mattresses, a table, 4 chairs, and a 400-gallon water tank at the rear. The porta-potty was a few feet away from the cabin to the north and was placed over a fissure.
The first thing I noticed as I entered the cabin was a sharp pain in my temples — altitude sickness hit me hard. Loss of appetite and headache followed through the day as we passed the time eating forcefully, sleeping, reading the visitor log book (we wrote a poem in the book!), and sleeping again. The hike was tiring and the headache did not make it easy to recuperate. We did a couple of lower and upper body stretches and then went out to see the sunset. The shadow of the summit was cast on the eastern sky and made the sunset unique and serene. Venus and Jupiter shone in the dusky sky on west and east respectively.
At 6:45 PM it got dark inside the cabin and since there were no lights or electricity or signals on our phone, we had to get into our sleeping bags. I found the sleeping bag to be very restrictive in movement and went ahead to make my own by wrapping four woolen blankets on me. The maximum temperature during the day was 6 deg C while it dipped below freezing at -4 deg C at night. The cabin kept us warm. I couldn’t catch a lot of sleep due to hunger, thirst, and headache. I got up to answer nature’s call midnight and was welcome with a beautiful starry sky — the center of the milky way galaxy was lit up in a faint green color right over my head. I could spot Scorpius with its stinger close to the zenith while I wasn’t sure if a triangle of stars I had spotted was indeed the summer triangle or not. Inside the cabin, the night was long and I couldn’t wait to see the sun rise.
The next morning, we woke up at 5:45 AM to catch a beautiful sun rise over the clouds on the east. We played around a while with our frisbee before we started our hike back. There were ice sculptures near the water tank and the temperature outside was still around 0 deg C when we came out of the cabin. The hike down seemed much easier and we were back in around 3 hours. We drove back home and I finally had some good food — curd rice and rajma!
Some useful notes for my next adventure
This was my second camping trip ever and my first at such high elevation. The hike was just 10 km long but took a lot more out of me than I expected. Some tips that I would give are -
1. For hikes on mountains, plan to avoid rains/snow at the summit and start early in the morning, preferably just before sun rise.
2. Force yourself to eat and drink a lots of water and electrolytes — 4 lit per day at least. Food becomes tasteless and the loss of appetite at altitude makes it a mental challenge — but keep munching! Lifestraw (or iodine) was necessary to drink the water at the cabin — in general, keep one of these to treat water when in wilderness.
3. Be prepared to suffer through altitude sickness, especially if climbing quickly. I felt good while hiking but as soon as I stepped into the cabin, the hammers were down on my head and it made me miserable.
4. Get the right shoes — preferably with ankle support — paired with light yet warm clothing. It is not a great idea to sweat on the summit — it will freeze you.
5. Practice sleeping in a sleeping bag if you’re used to comfortably sleeping on your bed!
6. Keep a map and compass in handy and try to get a general sense of the trail before starting the hike.
What did I gain from this trip?
The idea of being on top of the world — in this case the Big Island — is definitely enticing. The uncertainty of what to expect from this adventure made it very appealing to me. The hike was very rewarding — the huge caldera is the only visible feature from a satellite in all the islands of Hawai’i. Over the 3 days of our adventure, we saw a total of 4 people on the trail and none of them hiked all the way to the cabin. The cabin has had less than 200 visitors in the past 1.5 years — I could understand why after hiking up. I enjoyed every bit of the challenge and the views from the top were the reward. I am already looking forward to my next adventure!
