Back to the Volcano, one last time

We have done several hikes in and around Volcanoes National Park but we have not hiked the crater rim trail itself much.  So we thought we would go back to the park one more time and hike that trail.  Well, not all the trail, since it is quite long.  But we could start at one end, hike until we were tired, or got to a part that we had already hiked, then go to the other end and hike back from there.

So we started by going to the end of the Crater Rim Drive - West and going to Uekahuna which is the highest point on the crater rim. 

We hiked back towards the Visitor’s Center about a mile and a half.  That got us quite close to the crater rim in several places.  It’s difficult to tell by looking over the edge, but if you look a bit to your left or right, you can see that the crater rim just falls off almost vertically.


which is why the trail stays well back from the actual rim most of the way.

The mile and a half hike got us back to the steam vents, and Sulphur Banks, which we have already walked.  So at that point, we turned around and hiked back.  As we got back to the parking lot, we saw a park ranger giving a tour, and listened in.

We knew that the volcano is “active” although currently it is not doing anything but sitting there and smoldering.  The ranger said that active lava eruptions have happened many times in the last few decades and count happen any time.  But I said, there are precursor events, so we at least know it won’t happen today or tomorrow.  He said, yes, there are precursor events, but those events sometimes are just hours before and eruption, so an eruption tomorrow would be possible. Maybe not likely, but no one knows.

Then we drove over to the Crater Rim Drive East, stopping at the same parking lot as the Devastation Trail. The most recent eruption, in 2018,  among other things, tore up park of the Crater Rim Drive, and they had to close it off to traffic.  But much of the part of the road that was closed to traffic was open to walking.


So we hiked down that road.  You could see how the plants on both sides of the road are already trying to take it over again.


After a mile of walking, there were a couple of view points where you could get a good view of the caldera from the opposite side from what we saw in the morning.


And you could see details down on the crater floor that are too far away from the other rim.


But then the road was blocked off, and you could see how the road had buckled from the previous eruption.


Then it was time to turn around, walk back the mile to the parking lot, and drive back to Hilo and then down to our place.


Location: Hawaii, USA

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