Wednesday we headed out to Volcanoes National Park. We got there before the big crowds starting coming in, which was nice.\u00a0 We toured the visitor center, got our park passport stamped, and did some gift shop shopping.\u00a0 Then we headed out to start driving Crater Rim Road.\u00a0 This road allows you to drive around the caldera, which is a big crater and sends lots of steam into the air.\u00a0 The steam is caused by rain from the surface hitting the hot lava under the surface, releasing steam.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We hiked to the sulphur banks.\u00a0 Here you see where the steam has a large amount of acid, minerals, and sulphur in it, causing the rocks to turn a bright yellow\/green color.\u00a0 While it may look like eggs, it doesn’t smell like eggs.\u00a0 There are signs everywhere in the park telling you that volcanic fumes can be hazardous to your health, basically telling everyone but healthy white males they shouldn’t proceed!\u00a0 I ignored it and continued on anyways….However, part of Crater Rim Road has been closed for a while because the amount of fumes being emitted from the caldera makes that area way too harmful for visitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Walking to the caldera overlook, we saw a field of orchids. I couldn’t believe that orchids were growing like wild flowers on the side of a volcano!\u00a0 I don’t think anyone else took the time to notice the beautiful flowers either.<\/p>\n
You could approach steam vents nearby and you could feel the warmth coming up from the earth crack.\u00a0 There was a lot of steam this day because it rained off and on the whole time we were in the park, making for a cool, grey day around the volcano.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We then descended down Chain of Craters Road to the Holei Sea Arch. Along the way we took a few detours, including a stroll through a lava tube.\u00a0 A lava tube is left after a flow of lava travels down the mountain and then the molten lava inside drains out, leaving the shell of a tube (like a cave).\u00a0 We brought our flashlights so we could travel to the end of the tube. The park has some of the tube lit and then a portion has been left as is, allowing visitors to continue on if they came prepared!\u00a0 So we went another 334 meters into the tube to its very end.\u00a0 Several times we didn’t think it could go on any further and then we found our way around.\u00a0 I have to say this was a very cool experience.\u00a0 At the end we turned out our lights to see how really dark it was.\u00a0 Pitch black doesn’t even begin to describe it!<\/p>\n
Back out of the tube and onto the road, we stopped at a view lookouts and drove through lots of old lava flows.\u00a0 After 20 miles, we finally made it to the sea.\u00a0 Here we stopped to see the sea arch. This naturally occuring arch in the cliff was caused by erosion from the waves.\u00a0 Very awesome because the arch is right there, not off in the distance to view.<\/p>\n
We walked about another mile or so down a paved 2-lane road, which had been closed. The reason?\u00a0 Lava flowed over the road a few years ago!\u00a0 Not far from here you could see where the new lava flows were happening.\u00a0 The steam clouds rolling off the coast line are enough to make a sunny day grey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heading back out of the park we made our way to where the new lava is flowing.\u00a0 The county has the road blocked off (because lava is flowing over a portion of the road, so the road ends anyways) and you can park nearby and walk to a viewing area.\u00a0 While we were not able to get to the area where the lava was ground level, we could view the lava pouring into the sea.\u00a0 This may be the coolest thing I have ever seen.\u00a0 Actually seeing new land being formed in front of my eyes.\u00a0 The darker it got, the more orange and red the clouds became.\u00a0 Very awesome that the earth has this power to create anew.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oh, I forgot to mention you also needed flashlights for this adventure too.\u00a0 To get to the viewing area, you had to walk about 20 minutes on lava flow. Not the easiest thing to do, particularly in the dark!\u00a0 Someone twisted their ankle on the way out in front of us.\u00a0 I don’t know how some people did it in flip flops!<\/p>\n
There was so much wonderful stuff about this day. I’m sure I haven’t captured it all, but being able to experience the volcano from so many perspectives has been incredible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wednesday we headed out to Volcanoes National Park. We got there before the big crowds starting coming in, which was nice.\u00a0 We toured the visitor center, got our park passport stamped, and did some gift shop shopping.\u00a0 Then we headed out to start driving Crater Rim Road.\u00a0 This road allows you to drive around the … Continue reading Lava<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[21,12],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hawaii2009","tag-big-island","tag-hawaii"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407,"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theferrells.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}