A long weekend? Cloudy enough to preclude a night with a telescope? May as well take a walk.
Puʻuhinai with a snow capped Mauna Kea behind
There are a few great hikes around the island, but often I just do not feel like driving very far. Thus I head out to Puʻuhinai again, one of my favorite local hikes just outside the village.
Recent rains have turned the landscape green and lush. Everywhere there are signs of flowing water, even along many of the old ranch roads, the downpours have been intense lately. The mauna have had snow all year so far, a reminder of a very wet winter rainy season.
A new shopping center here in Waikoloa is cause to celebrate. However… It is not the fancy new resturaunts, or the gym, or even the pizzarias I will be celebrating… It is a hardware store.
Waikoloa Ace Hardware
This week a new Ace Hardware opened its doors for the first time. Yes, I was there to check out the new store. Not having to take to 30-40 minute drive to Waimea or Kona when we need one little thing is a big deal for me.
I remember all too well need to make that drive on several occasions when something was busted in the house. There was the time I put a pickaxe through the water line supplying the house. I had the PVC pipe, and the glue needed to fix it, and one coupler… I needed two. I was short a single PVC coupling. Off on the hour long trip to Waimea and back for a single 50 cent part, that or no water in the house.
Stopping by our new Ace on their first morning I checked out the store, walking the aisles just to see what hey have, and do not have. Not that I left empty handed, I did buy a replacement garden hose for the driveway spigot.
The new store is a bit on the small side, not a huge selection of stuff. They do have all of the basics, a good selection of plumbing parts, screws and bolts, and electrical fittings. This will save a great deal of trouble in the future.
I am not certain what woke me up at one AM, but I was awake. Before going back to sleep I decided to check the satellite photos to see if I might get some telescope time before dawn. But what I found online had me totally awake and grabbing a couple batteries for the camera.
Mauna Loa has awoken.
I was soon driving out from the house to a point above the village with a clear view of the mauna. The whole southern sky an angry red over the village as I drove. I did not have to drive far, just a couple minutes from the house where you can find a clear view. Pulling off I set up the camera and shot.
I was not the only one out, half a dozen cars could be seen stopped along Waikoloa Road to view the eruption. The whole mauna is lit up red and it looks like the west flank is erupting, not just the caldera as Civil Defense currently insists. Just the clouds lit up on that side?
Life is intertesting.
Mauna Loa Eruption from Waikoloa
A summit webcam view of the new Mauna Loa eruption showing an active rift across the caldera floor.
Update: By dawn much of the caldera has flooded with lava. Scale is hard to see in the photos, you have to recall that the caldera is almost two miles across and three miles from end to end.
The Mauna Loa caldera eruption at dawn Nov 28, 2022
Update 9:11am: The eruption has already migrated to a series of fissures on the northeast flank. The typical Mauna Loa eruption script is a summit caldera eruption followed by a flank eruption a few days, or a few weeks later. We have just seen that happen in a few hours.
I am including a couple photos here taken by a co-worker as she commuted across the saddle this morning at dawn. You can already see the lava flows making their way into the saddle…
Mauna Loa Erption at Dawn, photo by Marcela Balleza
Mauna Loa Eruption at Dawn, photo by Marcela Balleza
There is a meme running around that relates all too well at the moment…
Smoke from an approaching wildfire stains the skies over Waikoloa
Worst month ever! What do you mean this is only the 1st?
Anonymous social media meme
This month is only four days old and we are quite ready to agree with whomever coined that meme.
Sunday, August first started out peaceful enough. I was looking forward to a relaxing day with a few chores about the house. The only nagging worry was keeping tabs on the large brushfire raging towards Waimea, though it was many miles away. As the winds picked up this worry also intensified, to where I had to the local emergency radio feed streaming on the computer speakers.
When the fragmentary radio chatter from the fire units indicated that the fire had jumped Highway 130 I knew what was coming next… An evacuation of Waikoloa Village.
Rather than spend the evening obsessing over election results I opted to take a hike. Nothing dramatic, just a short loop hike close to home, along the shoreline south of ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay .
Looking north the Waikoloa Resorts along the King’s Trail
The plan was to use the King’s Trail to quickly hike a couple miles out, then to take my time hiking back along the shoreline. I timed my start so that sunset would occur while I was coming back along the beach.
While this section of the King’s Trail is over 150 years old, it is in excellent condition and allows easy hiking across the lava fields. The trail cuts absolutely straight over the ridges and tumuli of piled rock, much faster than slogging through the beach sand.
I had hiked the shoreline here many times, but had not hiked any real length of the King’s Trail. The trail crosses the lava flows well above the coastline, as a result it can be brutally hot under a tropical Sun, while the shoreline offers regular shade and a cool ocean breeze.
This particular election day evening the Sun was muted by a broken overcast sky. Why not use the trail?
