Night On The Summit

On our last day on the Big Island we took a tour of the western and northern shores. We didn't have all day and had to be back at the hotel by mid-day. Fortunately, this part of the island is sparsely populated so driving down the highway is noticeably easier and I could actually set the cruise control - something that mainlanders take for granted, but I rarely get to do on a little island full of people...

Something creative and unusual are the ways that Hawaiians create their graffiti. There is so much black lava flow that it makes a great palette for white stones! So people have arranged white rocks on the black lava along the highways. It seems more eco-friendly, but it seems to last as long as paint. Look closely at this picture and you can see many different "rock formation" graffitis.

We drove to several spots and took some hikes. One of the interesting spots we visited was the ancient Hawaiian Navigation stones. The location seemed to be deserted so DeAnna and I lingered a while.

Apparently these stones point the way to the rest of the Hawaiian islands as well as Tahiti, Samoa and other Pacific island chains! Here you can see Maui in the distance (and stones pointing the way)!

The rest of the drive was cattle country. You would have thought you were on the great plains were it not for the volcanic cinder cones and the ever-present ocean in the distance! Our trip took us in sight of Mauna Kea... more on THAT later!

Before heading back to the western shore, we HAD to jump over to the eastern shore to get some Malasadas from TEX. A Malasada is a Portugese sweet bread (a solid, spongy donut). These Malasadas are legendary in the entire state of Hawaii and for good reason! After lunch at TEX (which was more than just donuts), we headed back towards the hotel.

Along the way, we saw the prettiest trees that were in full bloom with purple flowers! But our reason for returning at mid-day was not for rest, but for another planned adventure - sunset on the summit of Mauna Kea!

DeAnna had reserved a tour to Mauna Kea and sunset among the observatories on the summit of the tallest volcano in the world! We met our tour guide in Kailua-Kona and enjoyed our ride as the driver told us interesting facts about the island and geology as he drove us along the saddle road between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.

After ascending to an elevation of over a mile, we stopped at an old sheep ranching encampment for a warm dinner. The tour included a parka and gloves for the evening - you'll see them in the following pictures. At the summit, there was still snow so the winter weather gear was appreciated! Here is a cabin (long abandoned) where Mark Twain stayed on his tour of the mountain long ago.

We were concerned about the cloud cover, fog and the thick VOG that we'd been seeing for the past 2 days, but just a few miles up the road, we cleared the clouds and the air was crystal clear and the sky was blue! We could see Mauna Loa in the distance. We stopped several times on the way up to see the view and take pictures.

Several miles from the summit, the paved road ended and we engaged the 4 wheel drive to traverse the gravel road back and forth up the mountain. Thinking about how they transported high precision astronomical instruments (including 10-meter diameter mirrors) up this road made the trip even more amazing! We had a little extra time, so our tour guide drove us off the road to a dish antenna - one of the very remote listening posts for the VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) which is based in Arizona. The moon was rising in the east as the sun was setting in the west!

Finally, we reached the top! There were so many famous observatories that it was hard to take pictures of them all! DeAnna and I took many great pictures while we waited for the sun to actually set. Here is Joe holding the moon!

DeAnna taking a picture of the shadow of Mauna Kea stretching out to the horizon with the moon rising. As the night grew closer, the observatories moved and opened to equalize the temperature of the observatories with the night air.
I took a short movie tour of the summit so you could see where all the telescopes and tourists were located. Our vantage point put us looking directly over the Keck twin observatories at the setting sun!

I know it's boring, but it's my blog and exciting to me to see these shots of the observatories so take a look!




































Sunset finally came and it was stunning in the thin air at 13,796 feet above sea level. It felt as far away from Hawaii as you could get!



Before we left the summit, we got a companion to take our picture. At this point it was the first time in over a year that my hands were so cold I couldn't feel them (just like many days in Minnesota)!

We stopped on the way down and had hot chocolate and cookie while our guide did a mini-star party with a telescope. It was really fun to be up on Mauna Kea watching the stars... If you look closely at the picture, you can see the Southern Cross!
The trip back to the hotel was very long and we were asleep within minutes! It was a long, but rewarding day. We had a plane to catch in the morning and I had to report back to work. Our lives returned back to "normal" on Oahu. It's still strange to think that I "normally" live on Oahu! DeAnna did an amazing job of organizing our trip and we got to see so much thanks to her research and planning! Now, the blog can start looking like a blog again instead of a travelogue. Thanks for reading so far. Check in again soon for more updates from Paradise or wherever I happen to be!