Hawaii

In September 2002, we took our third trip to the Big Island. We came here simply because we had seen on the news that Pu’u ‘O’o was sending surface flows close to the end of Chain of Craters Road in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.

We were here a year earlier and had to hike about 2.5 miles over the lava fields to reach the surface flows. We felt that if we could see them without a repeat of such great effort, it would be well worth the expense.

We were correct!

We ventured down to the end of Chain of Craters Road on two consecutive mornings before dawn and found the lava crossing right at the end of the road. Even if you were wheelchair bound, you could have accessed these flows!

As we looked uphill towards Pu’u ‘O’o we saw nothing but black with glowing tiny streams of orange coming towards us. With clouds blocking most light from moon and stars, the majority of light came from the glowing lava. It was rather eerie to see the orange streams glowing in the middle of all that darkness.

We walked out onto the flows to get a closer look.

I found an interesting spot where the lava was flowing slowly on both sides. I set up my tripod and video camera and started recording.

This video segment is simply a breakout that happened no more than 30 feet from my position. I was just glad to be able to see it from such close proximity.

Duration : 0:0:52

Technorati Tags: adventure, Big, Hawaii, hike, Island, lava, national, Night, Park, travel, unique, vacation, Volcano

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