lava

On Monday, our petroglyph guide recommended we hike to the lava flows in late afternoon, arriving around sunset so we could see the lava glowing orange, then hiking back in the dark. That sounded perfect to me.

On Wednesday, we made the drive around to the other side of the island to the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

I ended up hiking most of the way alone, since my brother and mother had stayed at the hotel due to exhaustion and my father wasn't up for the treacherous terrain so soon after chemo. In a way, I was glad he decided to turn around, since I was worried for him, his balance, his general energy level.

It was three, three and a half miles one way. The first leg was paved, then reflective markers every few feet across large lava rocks. Then the markers stopped and we were guided by six plastic posts with blinking lights, spaced a third of a mile apart. These often disappeared from view until I made my way back to high ground and stopped to scan the horizon.

I tried not to think too much about how lava caves formed and how the tops of seemingly solid lava rocks would sometimes collapse.

I made my way to the rope barrier with time to kill before sunset. I ate my onigiri, took some photos, and waited. As more and more people arrived and ignored the rope barrier, and as I noted how my view was nowhere near as good as it could be, I, too, decided to disregard the "The rocks beyond this point could slide into the ocean without warning at any point" signs and made my way past the rope for a better view. We watched lava hit the water: huge clouds of steam; sometimes lava would spray high in the air as a particularly big wave hit.

This was one of the two times I wished for a stronger zoom in Hawai'i, but for the most part I'm in love with my new lens.

The hike back was difficult. My mind was no longer on collapsing rock; I was just concentrating on not tripping, not stepping into a crevasse. And yet I figure this wasn't the most dangerous photo walk I've taken ;-)

more here.