Was the real summit of Mauna Kea destroyed to make way for a telescope?

The idea that one of the existing telescopes sits on what was the real summit of Mauna Kea is persistent.

and NO there is NO RECTIFYING of the DAMAGES TO MAUNA KEA!!! Damnit man they sheered OFF the summit to INSERT the Kecks into The Pu’u that was the SUMMIT. What an ignorant thing to say!!!

Susan Rosier in a Facebook comment, 4 Aug 2019

While not a common claim this idea keeps popping up. It was even repeated by Kealoha Pisciotta under oath during the contested case. In her case she claimed it was the nearby summit ridge that was shaved off, and they “just moved the summit”.

The claim is an attempt to show that the telescopes have been very damaging to the summit and that those who built them completely disregarded the sacred sites atop Mauna Kea, destroying the true summit.

This is simply not true, the true summit of Mauna Kea sits untouched and set aside for those who wish to visit or pule on the site. There is no road, only a trail to the site, you must park nearby and hike up the summit, a bit of a chore at nearly 14,000ft elevation.

This is a really easy claim to debunk. There are multiple surveys of the summit that took place. There are the 1892 Alexander maps, as well as multiple revisions of USGS topographic maps of the summit during the early 20th century before the road and telescopes were built. All of these show the summit of Mauna Kea right where it is today.

In 1892 the summit was surveyed by W.D. Alexander, the royal surveyor general working for King Kalākaua and Queen Liliʻuokalani at the time. The first accurate survey of the summit region. In addition to excellent maps of the summit, he measured the height of the mauna with good accuracy using just a transit and skill.

The claim is also thoroughly debunked with the USGS topographic maps from 1930 and 1956, these excellent maps also show the real summit right where it is today, away from the existing telescopes.

Result: Completely False