Christmas in Paradise - People | MIT...

Christmas In Paradise

Berthold K.P. Horn

It started to snow. The wind swirled theflakes around the floor of the caldera inpatterns mimicking the ropy flows of thelava itself. Soon the frozen lava lake twohundred meters below was hidden fromview. I was not too surprised; first the highcirrus clouds and then the squall lines hadblown in on the Kona winds from the bad-weather direction over the Pacific. Aloneon the volcano, I had no idea just how in-tense the storm was going to be. The light-ning had been unpleasantly close the nightbefore, as the loud claps of thunder echoedbetween the steep cliffs of the summit de-pression.

Moku’aweoweo, Mauna Loa’s caldera, is 4km long and 2.5 km across. Most of thepresent floor consists of 1984 lava flows.Mauna Kea, slightly higher at 4205 me-ters, appears in the middle background—43 km away.

Now that daylight had come, my situationwas painfully obvious: I was stranded in awhite-out on top of a mountain composedin part of iron-bearing minerals known todeflect compass needles; a long way fromanywhere. It was not going to be easy tofind the way down in the blowing snowsince the gentle slope would not providemuch of a directional cue.

The edge of the caldera drops nearly verti-cal about 200 meters—only half as muchas a century ago.

In this island chain, the lava oozes out in aform that flows easily to add one thin layerafter another to build huge shield volca-noes. There are few explosive eruptions,at least until late in the life of a particu-lar volcano. Consequently, the mountainslook like giant pockmarked pancakes, withslopes of only perhaps ten-degree inclina-tion. It is hard to get a feeling for theirscale from below. The silhouette starts atone point on the horizon, gradually rises,then slowly descends to the opposite point

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on the horizon. One cannot get near with-out standing on the extensive skirt of themountain. The Big Island consists of fivevolcanoes, two extinct, one dormant andtwo active. The ocean is over 5000 metersdeep here, so measured from base to sum-mit, these are the highest mountains in theworld. They have enormous volumes, asmuch as a hundred times that of a typicalsteep strato- cone made of congealed lavaof a more viscous nature.

The 1949 cone—right on the edge of thecaldera—provides one of the few ways ofgetting into the caldera. It is still steamingfrom heat retained from the 1984 errup-tion in which a curtain of fire sprang froma crack running across the caldera floor.

I had hoped for snow—lots of it. Muchof the lava up here is the loose, blocky,highly abrasive ’a’a. It is unpleasant, atbest, to walk on the clinkers, much worsethan on the smooth, although often hol-low, pillows of pahoehoe. The caldera hasnot been circumnavigated, except on snowshoes, when a substantial layer of the white

stuff hides the treacherous stretches of ’a’anear the South pit. I had planned to walkaround the caldera. At an altitude of over4000 meters, the fifteen kilometers wouldhave taken me the better part of a day.

The caldera of Mauna Loa on a calm dayjust after sunset. Alpenglow on the cindercones of Mauna Kea in the distance.

My timing was just off—it should havesnowed before I got up here. The locals, aswell as tourists visiting this tropical par-adise, had watched with amusement as Iarrived burdened with pile, down and gor-tex. It was worth it though, I had the wholemountain to myself. Few ascend it in win-ter and in any case the upper part hadbeen off limits for a while since an erup-tion near the summit disgorged quantitiesof lava that obliterated a substantial part ofthe trail, as well as the ahus, stone cairnsmarking the path. In past years numeroussections of the trail had to be relocated onthis, the world’s most active volcanoe.

I dropped down into Moku’aweoweo (the

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section of a red bigeye fish) and concen-trated on avoiding Lua Poholo, a deep pitcrater with steep sides left over from one ofthe more spectacular secondary eruptionsfeaturing a high lava fountain. Thirty kilo-meters to go. Passing Jaggar’s cave on theway out of the North pit I cursed the windas it caught my backpack. Toppling over atirregular intervals when gusts caught meunprepared, I picked my way through therecent lava flows. Hours of slow progressand constant attention to weak parts of thefresh crust took their toll. A broken legcould be disastrous in this exposed area farfrom shelter or help.

What looks like a snow-covered trail alongthe caldera’s edge is actually a hiddencrack running parallel to the caldera’sedge. There is a faint rainbow in the su-percooled water droplets in the mist.

The first part of the trail passes a numberof distinctive landmarks. It was importantto try and find these despite the fog andblowing snow. First Pohaku Hanalei, thenSteaming cone, followed by Dewey’s cone.

I had to retrace my steps when I stum-bled into Puka uahi (smoking hole) ratherthan skirting it on the right. I paused tocheck my dwindling supplies. There wasnot much water left, but that would notbe a problem now since I might be able tostart up the stove in one of the lava cavesto melt snow. On the way up I had beendisappointed to find only bits of dirty icein these rare holes known to occasionallyretain rain water. I rose to continue to dobattle with the wind.

Eight hundred meters from pendulumpeak, where Charles Wilks set up camp in1841 when the U.S. exploring expeditioncame up here, is a lava crack containingice and sometimes a bit of dirty water insummer. The place is marked by a hugeahu or stone cairn.

Hours later the smell of sulphur confirmedthat I was still on the North-East rift zone.I had seen the bright yellow surfaces ofthe deposits on the way up near the cracksfrom which the gases emanated. It was for-tunate that I had not wandered any closer,

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for the noxious fumes can leave one gasp-ing for air. Not much later I passed anumber of steaming vents. Very tempt-ing to someone wishing to warm up. Butwet clothing would have accelerated thehypothermia beginning to set in. It waspleasant to walk on fields of golden pumicenear a spatter rampart formed by a recenteruption. Then the wind tore a hole inthe clouds and Mauna Kea came into view.Slightly higher than the mountain I was on,and brilliantly white today, it provided a re-assuring landmark for a while.

The morning mist softens the extremecontrast between lava and snow.

Pattern of melting and refreezing snow on’a’a lava far below in the caldera.

The so-called observatory trail followsa recent spatter rampart North towardsMauna Kea. The start of the trail at 3350meters is 30 km from the saddle road.From there it is another 46 km to Hilo onthe coast.

There was still a long way to go, but Iknew now that things would work out—wind or not. The hours to Pu’u ’Ula’ula (redhill) at about 3000 meters passed unevent-fully. I rested there before starting on thelong haul down to the head of the trail the

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next day. It had been interesting to studythe many colors and textures of the lava.Still, it was refreshing to see green againat around 2500 meters, after days in thisdesolate terrain.

I was happy too that the earthquakedamage that had closed the access road ayear ago had been repaired, saving twenty-two kilometers on the way out.

Maybe there will be good snow covernext year. They say that he who does notclimb Mauna Loa once is a fool; he whoclimbs it twice is also a fool. The next timeon the long mountain will be my third.

A crevasse on a volcanoe! Blowing snowcovers deep cracks wide enough to swal-low the unwary.

Note: page down for enlarged images.

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