Travel Guide: Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Located on the Big Island, Hawaii, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is one of the most extraordinary natural places. The park covers 377 square miles of dynamic volcano landscape that attracts tourists, geologists and anyone with a sense of wonder. Inside the gates, the visitor can hike or drive around the amazing volcano landscape to witness cooled calderas or live lava flows. The park features an observatory where visitors can view the Kilauea Caldera from above and decide if they want to hike across the steaming cooled lava.

Since the park is quite large a stay of more than two days will allow you to see as much of the park as possible. There are camping spots nearby or book at the Volcano House, an old style country lodge in operation since 1846. Volcano House is perched on the edge of the Kilauea Caldera and has housed famous guests such as Queen Liliuokalani, Mark Twain and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As the only hotel in the park it offers the best place from which to launch your Volcanoes adventures.

The best place to start your volcano adventure is at the park headquarters and visitors center which features a museum with exhibits, an excellent relief model of the park and a film shown at regular intervals. The visitor's center is a great way to get acquainted with the park and ensure you don't miss a thing as you explore. You can also find out about guided tours and other events that may be happening during your visit such as cultural events. It is also the best place to learn where lava flows are happening and how to get to them safely. Near to the Visitor's Center is the Volcano Art Center which is housed in the original Volcano House. It is an excellent spot to find works from local artists and craftsman.

Across the parking lost from the Visitor's Center is the Earthquake Trail to Waldron Ledge. This short half mile loop follows a broken roadway, part of which fell into the Kilauea caldera during an earthquake in 1983. At Waldron Ledge you get a great view of the Big Island's two Volcanoes, Kilauea and Mauna Loa. Several other landmarks are also visible from this vantage point such as cinder cones and the steaming Halemaumau Crater. As you look out over the cooled surface of the Kilauea caldera, it is hard to imagine that landscape has been at times a red-hot lake of boiling lava.

Throughout the park, the volcanoes take center stage but plants, animals, birds, climate and history are also part of the park experience. In Volcanoes National Park, the landscape is a contrast of lush vegetation and scoured earth. The flows from Kilauea work dynamically to provide rich, fertile soils and then demolish vegetation with lava. It is always a work in progress. The extreme isolation of the Big Island, Hawaii, means that all flora and fauna came by air or sea. It is a truly unique display of evolution and adaptation, constantly changing, and found no where else on Earth.

A hike down to the immense Kilauea caldera takes the visitor through a magnificent rainforest where tropical flora and fauna delight the eyes and ears. The forest is filled with lush ferns and ohi'a trees, the most common native tree in the park and one of the first to appear on new lava. The caldera is about 400 feet down and about 2.5 miles across. It formed by a violent collapse after centuries of erupting major amounts of magma, creating a void beneath the cooled lava surface of the caldera. As you hike across this desolate area you realize you are one of just a handful of hikers and you might start to question your decision. As recently as 1959, the cooled lava lake you are now standing on opened up a line of cracks and spewed lava fountains high into the air, as high as 1900 feet. Even as you cross today, still molten lava bubbles a mere 230 feet below your sneakers.

Likely, you'll survive the caldera and live to see the rest of the park, and there is so much more. A short loop trail takes you through the Thurston Lava Tube, a cave in a lava flow. Formed by a river of hot lava, this cave took shape as the surface cooled and the molten interior kept flowing. The result is the emptied out cave-like tunnel. Lava tubes exist all over the Big Island, Hawaii, and were used by early Hawaiians as burial caves or places of refuge. As you walk through the tunnel, consider that only a few hundred years stand between you and a red-hot river of lava. Visible marks on the side of the tube indicate the surface of the lava river. The cave's exit is actually a collapse in its thin roof, a reminder of how the landscape is not always what it appears to be.

There are several excellent hikes through the park depending on your preference. These include the Halemaumau Trail (3.2 miles) which crosses the Kilauea caldera, the Kilauea Iki Trail (5 miles) which descends into Kilauea Iki Crater, the Bird Park Trail (1 mile) which explores mature forests of rare trees, the Napau Trail (14 miles) which crosses the most recent lava flows from 1974, and the Halape Trail (14 miles) which traverses the park to the ocean. A short half mile loop takes you down Devastation Trail where a blanket of loose pumice and dead white logs mark the venting of one of Kilauea's cinder cones. At the end of Devastation Trail, ohi'a trees still grow buried in 10 feet of pumice.

Another must see at the park is the Jaggar Museum and Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Professor Thomas A. Jaggar was a professor of Geology at MIT and one of the key people involved in establishing the park. He founded the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in 1912 and acted as director until 1940. The laboratories are closed to the public but the Jaggar Museum has excellent exhibits which show how volcanoes are studied. The Observatory monitors Kilauea and Mauna Loa as well as potential volcanoes throughout the island chain. The instruments used here trace movement and magma with incredible accuracy and computers work full-time to pinpoint seismic activity. The dynamic volcano structure of the Big Island results in more than 100,000 earthquakes per year. By tracking the patterns of small earthquakes the scientists here follow the magma that flows into Kilauea's East Rift alerting visitors of danger and of the best lava viewing times.

The overlook outside the Jaggar Museum offers views across the Kilauea caldera to the southwest rift zone leading to the ocean. It is here where the biggest attraction for most visitors to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the flowing lava, can best be seen. Chain of Craters road descends 23 miles through old and new lava flows that stretch beyond the horizon. As you head down Chain of Craters be sure you have a full tank of gas, comfortable shoes and plenty of cold drinks. The road has often been covered by lava or cracked apart by earthquakes. This is the flank of the volcano which extends to the ocean, what some call Pele's underground road. Lava from Kilauea's summit vents on the sides of the volcano many miles away and closer to the ocean.

Many visitors are surprised at the volcano landscape and it can be disorienting. Rather than steep sided conical mountains, the volcanoes of the Big Island, Hawaii, are shield volcanoes. They are sloping, basaltic volcanoes that experience more frequent but less violent eruptions than volcanoes such as Mt. St.Helen's. These volcanoes are like candles that have dripped wax continuously, building new layers on top of old. This is what gives the Big Island its shape and explain why lava viewing occurs miles from the volcano summit. Rather than an explosion, the lava flows are more a seeping of magma. However, this by no means deflates the awesome experience of seeing live lava flows and it increases the ability for visitors to get up close to dynamic geologic change. At the rift zone along Chain of Craters Road, active lava flows clash with the cold Pacific Ocean often in violent displays. As the lava cools, the visitor witnesses the island growing and the newest rocks on the planet.

The park offers several other impressive features that should be on your list of stops. The Keanakako'I Crater is a pit crater formed from a collapse much like that which formed the Kilauea caldera. Steam and sulfur still hisses from active gas vents and a clear day offers a panoramic view of Mauna Loa, the long mountain, from the craters edge. Mauna Kea, the white mountain, is also visible and home to some of the most sophisticated astronomical observatories on its 13,796 foot summit.

Halamaumau Crater is the home of Pele, Hawaiian Goddess of volcanoes. This crater makes its presence known through volcanic gas emissions of carbon dioxide, steam and sulfur dioxide. Although an impressive sight, the Halamaumau Crater area is difficult for those with respiratory or heart ailments and should be avoided by young children or pregnant visitors. Halemaumau's floor is cooled lava from a 1974 eruption. Here Pele is honored with offerings of liquor, money, food and flowers and is the site of an annual formal ceremony. Ohelo bushes are abundant nearby but if you are sampling these sacred berries be sure to toss a handful to Pele first.

Besides Halamaumau Crater, the earth steams and hisses with gases in other spots around the park. The Steaming Bluff is a terrace where ground water seeps into hot volcanic rocks and resurfaces as steam. On certain days the steam flows like a waterfall over the cliff walls of the Kilauea Caldera. The Sulfur Bank is another spot where volcanic gases continuously flow. Here carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide seep out of the earth along with steam.

As the Halamaumau Crater, many spots in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park mix natural history with cultural. The Pu'u Loa Petroglyphs are an impressive exhibit of this convergence. Here is the largest concentration of petroglyphs in Hawaii - figures, shapes and symbols carved into the lava by early Hawaiians. Pu'u Loa translates to "long hill" but Hawaiians translate it to "hill of long life." It is believed that a custom of early Hawaiians was to carve a hole in the lava for the umbilical stump, or piko,.of a newborn baby. The piko was then covered and left until morning. If it was there upon the placers return, the child would live a long life. The site was used by families from all of the Hawaiian Islands. When visiting this area it is imperative to stay on the trail and not disrupt the fragile carvings.

Another site steeped in legend is the Holei Sea Arch. Where sea cliffs meet ocean waves erosion can produce impressive geological formation. The cliffs here are made from lava flows from Pele. Pele's sister, Namakaokaha'I was the goddess of the sea. The Holei Sea Arch symbolizes the ongoing rivalry between Pele and her sister. Pele would build and her sister would destroy.

The legends and landscapes are long at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. From steaming vents to flowing lava to seaside lore the park is an endless adventure. The island's natural beauty, built by volcanic forces and reinforced with long cultural histories, provides a setting unlike any other. It is a one of a kind destination for anyone with a sense of wonder.