The Roaming BoomersWe Visit Hawaii’s Volcano National Park
During our trip to Hawaii, unfortunately, we had only one day available to us to visit Volcano National Park. Just so you know, I think only one day alotted to this National Park is verging on criminal behavior. But alas, such was our journey.
We arose for early breakfast at The Palms Cliff House, and made the roughly 60 mile trek to Volcano National Park. We arrived as one of the first wave of visitors for the day, and made our way to the visitor center to acquaint ourselves with the park and to view the park’s informational movie.
We also learned that a large portion of our planned Crater Rim Drive was closed due to a new vent opening in the Halema’uma’u Crater.
While a little disappointed we still greatly enjoyed the steaming bluffs, the Jaggar Museum, and walking through the Thurston Lava Tube was out of this world.
It was now lunch time, and our planned visit to Volcano House Hotel for lunch was also quashed as it was closed for remodeling. Therefore, we resorted to nuts, trail mix, and water that we found in the visitor center’s gift shop.
After our scrumptious lunch we moved along our exploration to the Chain of Craters Road. This road descends nearly 4,000 feet taking you past vast volcanic craters, miles of land made barren by massive lava flows, past an old road made impassible by lava, and ultimately to the sea where you can stand on steep cliffs of lava overlooking the crashing waves below.
As I mentioned, to visit this park in only a day seems criminal. We will be back, and next time we will be armed with ample time, and hiking gear to enjoy the incredible collection of trails available in this park. Further, if we can escape the rains of the eastern side of this island, we will also plan to watch the lava flow into the ocean.
Here is a slide show highlighting a few of our photographs from Hawaii’s Volcano National Park:
6 Comments on “We Visit Hawaii’s Volcano National Park”
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This is great! I am a ranger here at Hawaii Volcanoes and appreciate how you shared how the short visit was “borderline criminal” so true! Hard to know before you go though so your mention of it here may help some become more successful. Your pictures are great. I am going to tweet your link, I hope that is ok with you.
Aloha,
Kupono McDaniel
Supervisory Ranger – Interpretation
Kupono, how nice to have a Volcanoes National Park Ranger stop by with such nice comments. Thank you, and by all means, please tweet my article!
You packed quite a bit in to your short visit. While on the Big Island last May we made 4 trips to the park and still didn't see everything. We did visit often enough that they started checking my id against my pass – g. Very nice photos.
Lois,
Thanks for stopping by, and sharing your comments. Thanks also for the kudos on the photographs. The next time we are back, we will slow the pace down a bit, and bring our hiking shoes.