A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The HOT FLOWING LAVA

It started out innocently enough: two Colorado girls wanting to see some lava. But apparently that's easier said than done. There were plenty of boat, land and air tours but they all charged at least $100 per person, and by the time we decided we might need a guide most of the good ones were booked. We called a few friends, and a few friends of friends, who all had vague suggestions but nothing concrete. We consulted our guide books, which said that despite warning signs meant to imply it was forbidden, it was actually legal (although not particularly advisable) to walk right up to the lava. We even called the lava viewing hotline for advice, but that just connected us to a recording of a woman saying, "The lava is clearly visible from the viewing area." The map at the Volcanoes National Park said the viewing area was an hour and a half drive from the park, up Highway 11 and around the section of Highway 130 that had been covered with lava, so we decided to start driving in that general direction and see what came of it.

We stopped at a gas station to pick up an extra flashlight and water (see? We're perfectly competent at planning our excursions), and started following a large van that was obviously full of tourists with their guide. They turned onto Highway 137, so we followed them until the road ended at a funky outdoor bar. We had hoped to slyly follow the guide to wherever they were headed, but unfortunately it was a Japanese tour and we definitely stuck out. Plus they were walking super slow. We later found out that this was just a stop on their way to the real viewing area, but at the time we decided push past them and start our hike. We saw the smoke from the lava as it flowed down the mountain to our right, so we followed a semi-marked path to the beach and then set out over the black, solidified flows towards where we imagined our goal to be.

Danielle pointing at a fascinating rock formation

Pretty clouds

We weren't really aware how long this hike was going to take, so we took a ton of leisurely pics of the cool trees growing out of the black ground and the dramatic landscape

See the cute little tree!!
Hey look! More rocks and cracks! Let's take more pictures!!!

The black sand beach being formed by the 1980s-present flows was amazing, and I was excited to finally see a black beach. So we stopped for a good fifteen minutes to wade and take yoga-pose pictures.

As the sun began to set, we finally realized that we were tourists with no map, no sense of direction, and still no lava in sight, and maybe we should hurry up. When we started out there had been a handful of other groups wandering in the same general direction, but by twilight it was just us and 4 fifty-somethings a little ways ahead of us. When he noticed us trailing them, one of the men casually said, "I hope you don't think we know where we're going." "No, we're just hoping that if we follow someone, they'll fall into the lava before we do," I replied, only half kidding. We learned that our new companions had grown up together in South Dakota before moving to one of the Carolinas and then on to Florida. They were very personable and kept us laughing as we walked over the rocks. We saw several "Keep Out" and "Danger" signs, but we assumed these were the signs our guide book was referring to and chose to ignore them.

After walking for about an hour, we saw a man sitting under a large tarp watching the sunset. Danielle and I cautiously approached to ask for directions. By this time we had wandered away from the shoreline and could see a stream of tourists walking toward the lava on a road several miles up the mountain from where we were, and we had a sinking suspicion that we had followed the Japanese tourists to the wrong parking lot. The man was very friendly, and told us that we could either go to the viewing area where we saw all the other tourists and view the lava from a carefully marked containment zone, or we could walk another half-hour along the beach and see the lava flowing into the ocean at a spot where only a few guided tours went. Naturally, we chose the more awesome of the two options. But he warned us to stay near the shore and give the houses a wide birth because there were "land dispute issues" and people might make us turn back if they saw us. It was this warning that prompted Danielle and I to jump into a rock crevasse, duck and cover when we heard a woman calling out to the four Floridians (who were trailing us by a few hundred feet). But she, too, was very friendly and directed us even closer to the beach. Just as the last light of day faded and we were forced to get out our flashlight, we reached the rocky shoreline and saw a faint glow in the distance.

We walked up behind a small crowd, looked over a precarious ledge and there it was! Hot, flowing, molten rock, barely ten feet from where we stood, hissing and darkening as it met the ocean. We couldn't believe our luck. A few hours of random wandering had brought us to the most dramatic natural display we'd ever seen.


We took a few photos that we could post on facebook to show everyone how cool we are.

Yeah, I'm holding a fireball. It ain't no thang.

Danielle the enigmatic lava breather

After being mesmerized by the swirling magma for at least half an hour, we wandered a little further up the hill to where a tour guide was teaching his daring guidees to poke the volcano with a stick. Apparently paying a few hundred dollars to a punk local kid gives you immunity from the lethality of HOT, MOLTEN, LAVA. I feel like LAVA should always be written with the caps lock on.

Here's a video of the human sacrifices...er...tourists who hired a "guide".




We'd had such good luck with the other locals along the way that I decided to ask the stick-poking guide how we could get home safely, since we hadn't really followed a trail and it was now pitch black. Realizing we hadn't come with a guide, he made a big show of scolding us about trespassing on private property, and told us we could follow the coast but said it was dangerous and if anything happened to us we were responsible. We apologized, and explained we had followed a bus to the wrong parking lot and missed the viewing area. In hindsight I should have expected this reaction. Altogether our little group would have profited him an extra $1000 or so that night. Although I'm pretty sure we were safer with the Floridians.

We gathered the rest of our party and began the long trek back to our car. We found a path along the shore to follow, which cut our walking distance down considerably. One of the Floridians was a former firefighter, and he forged ahead to find the safest route. He was followed by the two women in the group, his wife and his brother-in-law's wife, and last came the brother-in-law, who had stepped in a small hole and gashed the front of his leg on the sharp volcanic rock and was walking in a wobbly way that made Danielle and I nervous. We hung out in the back with him, hoping we could somehow catch him if he started tottering near the edge of the cliffs we were walking along.

It was a surprisingly pleasant walk, given how late it was, the fact that we didn't really know where we were going, our fatigue, and our empty stomachs. Everyone was still awed by what we had just seen. Every now and then the Floridians would say something like, "Wait until our grandkids hear about this!!!" One of the women noticed we only had one flashlight and took my hand to guide me over the rougher terrain. Toward the very end of the hike it began to rain in heavy sheets. We finally arrived at the adorable outdoor bar around 9:30 that night, five hours after we'd started out. We felt very close to the Floridians after the extreme experience we'd shared, although we'd only known them in the dark and probably wouldn't recognize them if we saw them again. We said a sad goodbye and wished them well on the rest of their trip. After giggling to ourselves about how fortunate we'd been, we started the truck and headed to Hilo, where we spent the night in the parking lot of the only 24-hour cafe on the island.

Here's some more sweet LAVA videos.