This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘I’d Rather Be…’ See more responses here.
It had been a while since I went hiking, for various reasons, and it’s something I was missing, something I’d rather be doing. So last week, I headed down to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to try the Ka’u Desert Trail. This backcountry trail has been on my list for a long time, but I had never done it before. For one thing, it’s about as far from my house as one can get on the island. For another, it’s directly downwind from Kilauea Volcano, so when the volcano is active and the trade winds are blowing, gasses blow across the length of the trail.
The latest eruption of Kilauea is currently either paused or over, so gas emissions are much reduced, and last week, the trade winds had given way to winds from the southwest. So off I went.
The trailhead is several miles west of the main entrance to the park, with a strip of parking along the highway. The first mile of the hike is also known at the Footprints Trail. It’s a sort of paved path that threads through ohias to a small building that houses footprints left by early Hawaiians in volcanic mud and ash. Alas, I couldn’t identify any footprints in the display. Shortly after the footprints, the path breaks out of the vegetation into open lava fields. This isn’t a tropical Hawaii walk, this a bleak hellscape Hawaii walk. Or is it?
The trail ascends gently to the only junction for miles around, at Mauna Iki. To the left is a trail back towards the heart of the park. The Ka’u Desert Trail heads to the right and into backcountry wilderness. Mauna Iki was the site of an eruption in 1919 and the trail traverses the lava fields from this eruption.
Much of the trail is over pahoehoe lava, which is rounded and much easier to walk on than jagged a’a lava. The trail is marked by cairns and single rocks placed alongside it. It’s pretty easy to follow with just one or two parts where attention has to be paid to make sure one doesn’t stray.
It wasn’t far along this part of the trail that I first encountered blue lava. That’s right, blue lava. Who knew? But not just blue. There’s bronze, pink, red, orange, gold, and who knows what. I’ve seen colorful lava on the Puna Coast Trail, but this was more varied and quite wonderful. In places the trail crossed this colorful lava and I felt bad for walking on it, though as I hiked I could see many more patches of color out in the lava fields. It’s not wise to leave the trail since there are many lava tubes, some with very thin ceilings.
This is an out and back trail and I turned around once I reached the Kamakai’a Hills, after about 5 miles. It’s another 2 or 3 miles to the next junction where there is a small cabin.
Also posted for Jo’s Monday Walk. See more responses here.
Graham's Island 
Wow. So stunning. You definitely need to watch where you walk don’t you. Yikes. There are a few areas around here that are near volcanoes that have erupted, St. Helens and Central Oregon, the lava cast forest outside of Bend, but nothing like this.
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Thanks Kirstin. It’s a fabulous hike in its way.
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A slow scroll with a wow at each photo. What an amazing walk. I am still going wow. I agree with Jo, fabulous to print and frame. I am glad you took me along Graham 🙂
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Glad you enjoyed it Brian. It was actually an easy walk without a lot of ups and downs, so I was in a good frame of mind to enjoy it!
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It shows in the photos
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Well that’s no ordinary walk!!
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No indeed. And it’s not just visually interesting. There’s a lot of history in this area. An important battle here, back in the 1700s, was decided when the volcano erupted and one of the armies was wiped out by gases from the eruption. It was seen as a sign that the gods favored the other side!
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This is super fascinating! I would love to take that hike as long as it wasn’t too hot. Amazing. We’ve been to the park many years ago but didn’t hike very much. Thank you for sharing, and for your amazing photos!
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There are a lot of great hikes in the park. This one gets some traffic to the footprint hut but virtually no one goes beyond that.I was all alone out there! The weather was great. The elevation is around 2500 feet so it’s cooler than on the coast and there was a bit of a breeze as well as the cloud cover you see in the photos.
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Two years ago we went to Needles, part of Canyonlands National Park. It was a long drive and very desolate. One of the hikes was out and about on huge rocky terrain. The path was marked by little piles of rocks. Amazingly, it wasn’t that hard to follow. But once you got way out there, you felt in the middle of no where with very few people. There were actually quite a few campers out in that park. This post reminds me of that hike! It is kind of creepy to be so far away from people with no cell service.
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My local coast walks, 2 miles from home, have no cell service so I don’t mind that at all. As for being miles from people, the only part of this hike that wasn’t great was the two people with their two dogs (not allowed in the park) that were off leash and out of control. The larger of the two dogs found me a quarter mile or more away from its owner and snarled and barked at me for a while. It did this twice. The owners did nothing. I was much happier when I was miles away from them!
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😊
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I meant to add that we have purchased coffee from the Ka’u Coffee plantation when we visited in 2019, Graham. Were you near that area?
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Drove by it on the way down. I love that drive. There are a couple of sections I want to go back to and just take photos!
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It’s very pretty there and their coffee is amazing (just expensive)!
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All coffee is expensive these days!
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What a great place to hike and that you actually found a place that is new to you, even given the gas emissions from the eruptions. Not only are the different colors of lava quite amazing to see but there are flowers popping up out of the lava flow. This just shows you nature will have her way!
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The plants are very tenacious and well adapted for growing in the cracks. Kau Desert isn’t a real desert of course. It got it’s name for the desolate appearance. But though it rains a lot, that rain drains quickly through the lava so it’s still a tough place for things to grow.
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Fabulous, Graham! Some of these photos would look great framed and mounted on a plain wall. It must feel quite weird on such a recent lava flow. I love it! Thanks very much for linking!
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Glad you liked them Jo. I think of recent flows as ones that are still warm underfoot!
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Ouch!
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