During our time on the Big Island we were able to visit Volcano's National Park twice. If I'm honest, when we decided we were in for the trip to Hawaii I started lobbying hard for our destination to be either the Big Island or Oahu. I wanted to check another park off our list and more than that, I wanted to see a volcano!
There are 4 total volcanos that make up the Big Island but Kilauea is the only active volcano on the island. It was projected to erupt while we were on island and you can bet that I was checking the live feed cams and daily updates on the regular. It ended up erupting the day before we were scheduled to visit the park. On one had I was disappointed to not see it in all it's glory, on the other hand it sounds like the part is a total madhouse because everyone wants to see the volcano.
You can see it smoking way in the distance in these photos.
During our first visit to the park we were making the trek from the west side of the island over to Hilo and we had about a 3 hour drive as part of that journey. The park is right on the way, so we stopped in and explored, but only spent a few hours there because we still had a drive ahead of us, plus a trip to the grocery story in our plan for the day. We got the lay of the land, visited the visitors center, got our stamps (and of course a few things from the gift shop) and we had enough information to be able to make plans from there!
We did a short half mile hike from one of the overlooks (pictured above) over to some lava tubes but maybe the best part was that I spied the hike I wanted to do. A 4 mile loop that took you directly through the caldera of a no longer active volcano. If you look closely, you can see the path in the photo above. It's the white line that cuts a path directly through the lava field. How many times in your life do you have the opportunity to hike INSIDE a volcano!?! I knew I could convince others to do it with me. At a minimum I'd get Ryan to do it...maybe the girls.
Two days later the 5 of us (including Erin) made our way back from our home near Hilo to the park to do this exact hike. It was a four mile loop, but totally doable for the kiddos at this age. Mostly flat, expect for the switchbacks to get down into the caldera and then back out again. We started by hiking the rim of the volcano for about 3/4 of a mile, and the dropped down into the center. From there is was roughly 2 miles inside the lava field. In the photo above, we're standing on lava from the early 1980s, the most recent lava in this area.
I'm so thankful I was able to convince everyone to come along on this adventure. It might have been one of my favorite memories from the trip. The caldera is so interesting. First of all, we expected it to be warm down there, the sun is just blazing on the black lava rock. It was in the mid-60s that day and you can tell by our outfits that we expected it to be a combo of warm and cool (potentially rainy). We warmed up on our hike down but when we reached the bottom we found it to be super windy! I'm talking (what felt like) 40-50 mile an hour winds! It was so strong that you had to push your way into the wind, leaning forward and forcing your way through. Even more interesting, about half way through the wind direction totally flipped and it was coming from behind us. Ryan suggested it was similar to a football stadium and the strange gusts that happen there because of the high sides...maybe!!
The wind was one thing, but the perspective, scale and overall size are hard to capture. While we were walking I asked Ryan "how far is a football field from here" and he gave me what he thought was 100 yards. I said no way, it must be 3 times that distance. In the end, he was right (of course)! How did we know? He stepped it out with the kids counting. Twice. And he measured the distance he walked with his AppleWatch.
It was truly one of the coolest hikes we've ever done. One that I'll remember for a long time.
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