Thu, Jan 9, 2020
|
With: | Tom Becht |
Today was a big day for rain, even by Hawaiian standards. It seemed no place on
the big island was safe and we would end up a sopping mess for a second
day in a row. We headed to the Ka'u Desert in Volcanoes National Park, thinking
a desert ought to be one of the drier places we could find. It rained only a
fraction of what was pounding other parts of the state, but it still amounted
to probably half an inch of rain in the four and a half hours we were there.
It wasn't a continuous rain, but would come in heavy spurts. When it wasn't
raining, we could often see a wall of cloud and rain approaching from
the northeast,
giving us 5-15min warning before the next rainfall. Temperatures
were in the high 50s and low 60s, not unlike what one might get in California
during a rainstorm. The terrain is a mix of volcanic flows, from the smoother
pahoehoe to the jagged a'a. Luckily most of it is pahoehoe where cross-country
travel is relatively easy.
Starting from Hwy11,
the Ka'u Desert Trail (also called the Footprints Trail)
reaches to the summit of Mauna Iki in 1.8mi. The trail starts off as a
paved footpath, leading to a
covered park display area
for the preserved
native footprints that were found in the lava fields, remnants of an eruption
in the late
1700s that rained "falling sands" onto the natives inhabiting the
area at the time. Beyond this, the trail goes
across lava fields,
mostly of
the pahoehoe type, marked by regular cairns and rocks placed along the path
at intervals that make it virtually impossible to stray from.
Mauna Iki
itself is remarkably unremarkable,
the junction
of three signed trails with little
gradient on the uphill side, and only modest gradient south towards the coast.
From Mauna Iki,
we turned south towards the other two summits in the Kamakai'a Hills, a
collection of cinder cones about 2.5mi away. The trail veers to the right of
the two highest named cinder cones, requiring some cross-country travel. We
left the trail about a mile and a quarter north of Kamakai'auka,
the nearer
of the two cones. The cross-country was much better than expected, nearly the
same speed across the lava flows as on the trail, helped by the lack of the
the rougher a'a flows and an abundance of hardpacked black sand. We ascended up
the north slope, expecting a tiring pile of cinder gravel, but finding
it surprisingly solid with almost no slippage. We walked around
the rim
of the crater to
the highpoint on the south side, then down
the south side which was
looser than our ascent route. We were fortunate that the rain held up for the
entire ascent, short summit visit and descent, giving us some views and a
chance for some pictures.
The last summit, Kamakai'awaena, was another 0.6mi to the southwest. The rain
did not hold off for this one (thus no pics) and the slope was more like the
loose gravel we'd expected - it was notable just how different the construction
of the two cones could be, given their close proximity. Once off the last
summit, we paused so that Tom could clean the small stones
from his boots (and
wring out his sopping wet socks), then continued northwest towards the trail
to the northwest, another 0.6mi further. Once on the trail and heading back,
we were facing into the wind and rain which came more regularly now. We kept
our heads down to keep our hats and hoods from blowing off, and to keep the
rain from hitting our faces. We had a break in the rain for
the last mile,
giving our clothes a chance to dry some (though not a whole lot). Though it was
just past 12:30p when we
returned to the highway,
we had to call it a day as Tom had to fly back to the
mainland this afternoon. But first - beer, shower and lunch, in that order...
Continued...
This page last updated: Fri Jan 24 08:11:55 2020
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