Kilauea

Off to see Kilauea Volcano at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.  Always excited to use our National Parks Annual Pass and save $25.  We used it over at Haleakala as well.

Just as a reminder.....steam vents (from rainfall finding their way through cracks in the ground) are found every once in a while.

And our first view of the current Kilauea Crater.

Yes, there is lava down there at the bottom is the Halema'uma'u Crater of the Kilauea Caldera, but we can't see it from this vantage point.  A road goes around the entire larger crater rim, but has been closed.

The highlight of our visit to Kilauea was a chance to hike the Kilauea Iki trail.  It's a smaller, former, and now dormant, side crater that you can hike down into and walk across.

Follow the Ahu (rock piles)

After the hike, we drove the Chain of Craters road down to the sea.  This is the site of where you see those pictures of lava entering the sea.  The lava goes where it wants.

Pa'hoe'hoe lava

This road is a dead end...it's where the lava covered it up.  To see active lava coming from the ground requires a five mile hike in over the lava fields to see lava coming out of the ground, but not actually traveling all the way to the sea.

Palm trees that didn't get "eaten" by lava.

Luckily, the end of the road still allows for us, the public, to see the Holei Sea Arch!  A perfect way to end the day.

Time for the long drive back to Kona.