Photos 3, page 23
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Solo Hike to Pu'u O'o vent (continued)
| April 28, 2007 |
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| Looking back. That's Mauna Loa. |
| And Mauna Kea |
| A look ahead. That's A'a lava. Nasty stuff. |
| The vent with a helicopter over it. The place is buzzing with helicopters - 3 or 4 at a time. I was in one once, on my birthday. |
| Well, they mark the "trail", but there ain't no damned trail! This is really dangerous walking: the rocks are loose and sharp and slip out from under your feet so that balance is precarious. If you fall on this shit, you're going to be bloody! |
| Mauna Loa |
| Mauna Kea |
| I don't know what this stuff is. It looks like paste, but it's hard. |
| If you look really close, you can see what looks to be fine wire or hair. It's known as "Pele's Hair" and is a result of volcanic activity which spins this stuff out like thread, only it's made of lava. Pele, by the way, is the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes and we are always very nice to her! |
| This is looking east toward home |
| A look up ahead. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but it's really steep! |
| A gizmo for measuring something |
| Looking east but looking more at the foreground. |
| One last look up before turning back. |
| More Pele's hair |
| Looking back down the hill |
| More views of the "trail" back to the edge of the woods. |
| A lonely ohia |
| Squirrel tracks? No squirrels here, must be a mongoose... |
| Back in the rain forest... |
| Google gives a pretty good view right down into the vent here. The vent is composed of the main crater with several vents or lava ponds within it. See also my photos from the helicopter flight of 9/2. On this hike, the trail kept getting steeper and steeper and I got tireder and tireder. Finally, 300 very vertical feet from the top, I decided to turn back. It was 12:30 and I had been hiking for 4 1/2 hours and needed another 4 1/2 to 5 hours to get back. Besides, I was pushing my luck, hiking alone past all those warning signs... In addition, I had come prepared to spend the night, in case of emergency, so I was packing roughly 35 pounds on my back and I was definitely feeling it! |
| Look at this trail! |
| This is interesting: a tree had fallen across the trail... |
| And there was another full-sized tree growing out of it! |
| An interesting lava formation in the trail |
| By now, I was really getting sick of this trail. I was really tired and stumbling a lot. There was never anyplace I could just WALK! It was so humid in the rain forest, the sweat was literally dripping off me - therefore not doing a very good job of cooling... |
| I'm taking more pictures now because I'm tired and it's a good excuse to stop! |
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