Our Holiday in Hawaii, Part 3 Volcanoes National Park

 

During our stay on the Big Island of Hawaii, we visited several different sections of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. In the main park, we walked part way around the rim of Kilauea Caldera. The top picture shows a view overlooking the smoking crater.

The trail goes past a series of steam vents and Sulphur Banks. The steam vents are best seen in my video on YouTube - https://youtube.com/shorts/8K51WMfvSqg .

 The unusual yellow color of the Sulphur Banks is due to deposits of the element Sulphur from volcanic emissions. You can smell the sulfur when you walk past the bank.

 

We drove to Puuloa and hiked for about a mile across the old lava field to see the petroglyphs. It’s a desolate landscape, although some plants grow in the rocks. The picture below shows a petroglyph with a figure of a man. Many petroglyphs are circles, dots or simple depressions in the rock. 

 On our final day near the Volcanoes National Park, we walked up the first part of the trail to Mauna Loa. The terrain is rocks with scrubby plants. Some have edible berries, which Nene and other animals eat. 

We stopped by the fence to the rest of the trail. It’s a three to four day hike to the volcano and requires proper back-country gear. Maybe we’ll do it another time. Hawaii is certainly a place we’d love to see again.