Tag: Kohala

Kohala Skies

While much of the island focused on events taking place on the slopes of Mauna Kea, we had a better plan for Monday evening… Take some activities, and a couple telescopes out to a local library and share the sky with anyone who came.

Shelly the the Pretty Purple Telescope
Shelly enjoying a view of Jupiter through the PPT

We planned to bring a presentation and activities to the Kohala library. While the gals presented inside we had a couple telescopes setup outside the front door for anyone to enjoy. Thus is was a team of four… Shelly, Kelleen, Scott, and myself that arrived at the library about 5pm.

The drive over the Kohala on the mountain road is often pretty in the late afternoon. This day was no exception, the afternoon lighting the rolling green hills, Haleakala on Maui looming directly ahead of me as I drove.

I do worry about setting up a star party in Kohala as the weather is notoriously fickle and heavy rain squalls can sweep off the ocean very quickly. I was greeted by nearly clear skies, a pleasant surprise that bode well for the evening.

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South of Kiholo

The South Kohala Coast offers some of the most luxurious resorts on the world. Large resorts, beach parks, houses, and a small port occupy much of the coastline. Despite all of this there are still wild stretches of coastline to explore. Places with no development, where you can hike alone for a couple hours.

A black sand beach south of Kiholo Bay
A black sand beach south of Kiholo Bay

One of these undeveloped stretches runs several miles from the State Park at Kiholo Bay south to the resort area centered around the Hualalai Four Seasons, the most exclusive resort on the coastline.

A few friends and co-workers were camping out at Kiholo Bay over the weekend. An open invitation had also been sent out to our group for a hike south of the bay along the coastline. For once my weekend was not already committed and I decided to take the short drive down to Kiholo to join in.

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Ancient Nothings

An ancient megalith here on Hawaiʻi? That would be cool, check this out!

A YouTube video of a supposed ancient megalith in North Kohala
The video I find linked on a local Facebook group shows a rayed structure on the ground a few miles north of Kawaihae, with lines radiating from a central point for a mile or more, an enormous compass that points at destinations near and far from the islands.

It is a striking feature, but it is quite the jump to claim that this is a geoglyph created by an ancient civilization.

The video explains that the feature is 120,000 years old based on the geologic datings of the lava flows on the western slope of the Kohala. Part of this dating is based on a map of the island inscribed around the compass.

I know this area fairly well, even know some of the local ranchers, I find the evidence provided by the video a bit lacking. There are more than a few real archaeological remains in the area, remains of the rich Hawaiian culture that existed in the area before western contact.

As soon as I looked at the Google satellite imagery I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking at. A few moments of research confirmed my suspicions… The pattern on the ground is a paddock system used to control cattle movements in a section of range land. I am a bit disappointed, but not really surprised.

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