{"id":36,"date":"2004-10-29T12:40:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-29T04:40:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-07-22T20:40:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T12:40:42","slug":"tropical_snow_and_lava","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/2004\/10\/29\/tropical_snow_and_lava\/","title":{"rendered":"Tropical Snow and Lava…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kilauea
Kilauea Volcano, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I mentioned before, the Big Island of Hawaii holds a few distinctions. Not only does it have the wettest city in the U.S. (Hilo), it also has the southernmost town in the U.S. (where I’m posting this blog entry: Naalehu), and the biggest mountain in the world (if you consider the fact that, unlike Mount Everest, it starts on the floor of the ocean).<\/p>\n

\"Snow-capped
Snow-capped Mauna Loa Volcano in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mauna
Mauna Loa Lookout, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pacific
Pacific Ocean waves crashing into volcanic coast, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I spent the past few days camping and hiking on this world’s largest mountain while visiting Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The park is a pretty amazing place with huge extremes in climate, elevation, and environments. The park runs from sea level up to a 13,700-foot peak covered in snow. There are about 150 miles of hiking trails throughout the park (including the summit trail), but it is best known for its very active volcanoes and lava flows.<\/p>\n

\"Camping
Camping in the shadow of the snow-capped Mauna Loa Volcano in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Rainforest
Rainforest walk in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"K&imacr;lauea
Kīlauea Iki Crater Hike, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"K&imacr;lauea
Kīlauea Iki Crater Hike, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"K&imacr;lauea
Kīlauea Iki Crater Hike, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Green
Green shoots growing out of volcanic soil, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"K&imacr;lauea
Kīlauea Iki Crater Hike, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is the place you hear about lava flows in Hawaii, which crop up on the news every so often because they happen so frequently. The Big Island of Hawaii is the youngest of the Hawaiian Islands and continues to grow due to frequent volcanic eruptions. There are probably 15 or 20 active volcanic craters in the park, many of which have spewed lava in recent years. Throughout the park, there are huge hardened (cooled) lava flows that were making their way down to the sea before they froze into rock. You occasionally come to these clearings in the tropical growth along the road, where you’ll find nothing but black, hardened lava on either side. Signs are posted next to these flows indicating the years the lava flowed: 1959, 1974, 1982, 1998, 2002, 2003.<\/p>\n

\"Lava
Lava Flow Path in 1982, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"H&omacr;lei
Hōlei Sea Arch, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can still see live (hot) lava flows in some parts of the park, which glow bright red at night. In other parts of the park, you can hike across craters that were last active in 1959 but continue to smell of sulphur as they steam off the rainwater that falls down into their cracks. They say these craters are much like frozen lakes, except instead of ice you walk on a relatively thin crust of rock. Instead of there being water below, you’re walking over magma — just a few hundred feet down. All of these active craters could wake up and erupt more lava at any time, but they seem better positioned to predict eruptions these days by closely monitoring seismic activity in the area.<\/p>\n

\"Lava
Lava glowing at night in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Entrance
Entrance to Nāhuku (Thurston Lava Tube), Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hike
Hike to Mauna Loa Lookout, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"N&emacr;n&emacr;,
Nēnē, or Hawaiian geese (Branta sandvicensis), the state bird of Hawaii in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Volcanic
Volcanic Rock Pattern, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Throughout the park, there were warnings about frequent earthquakes and fault lines opening up. There were also warnings about tidal waves, saying you should run from the ocean to higher ground if there are any earthquakes. Lava flows, earthquakes, and tidal waves have wiped out entire towns on this island in just the last century.<\/p>\n

\"Hardened
Hardened lava blocking road in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hardened
Hardened lava blocking road in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hardened
Hardened lava blocking road in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hardened
Hardened lava blocking road in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hardened
Hardened Lava in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hardened
Hardened lava blocking road in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Island of Hawai’i, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What an exciting place!<\/p>\n

\"Tsunami
Tsunami Warning Siren near Hilo, Hawai’i<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I mentioned before, the Big Island of Hawaii holds a few distinctions. Not only does it have the wettest city in the U.S. (Hilo), it also has the southernmost town in the U.S. (where I’m posting this blog entry: Naalehu), and the biggest mountain in the world (if you consider the fact that, unlike… Continue reading Tropical Snow and Lava…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,24,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hawaii","category-hawaii-the-big-island","category-united-states","without-featured-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3sHuW-A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}