Category: Hawai’i

A number of roads I once drove have been claimed by volcanoes over the years.

Crater Rim Drive literally collapsed into Kilauea Caldera, the road, viewpoints, trailheads… All gone. Highway 132, Pohoiki road, Kopoho Road, all buried during the 2018 eruption. Sections of Highway 130 near Kalapana, slowly covered by the Puʻu Oʻo eruptions flowing to the sea.

And the Mauna Loa access road, cut by the 2022 Mauna Loa eruption.

How many times did I travel this road? Quite a few… Trips up to set up my own telescope near the NOAA research station. Contracting work at the NOAA station in the wake of the pandemic. A couple trips up just to enjoy the scenery or do a little photography.

Then an eruption, the first eruption of Mauna Loa in near four decades. The lava flows cut the road in two places.

I had not been up to where the lava crossed the road since the eruption. That was until until this last weekend. I finally got up there… No reason, just enjoying the mauna on a pretty Sunday morning. I parked down below and rode the bike the last few miles up to the lava flow.

As expected the road just vanishes under the lava. An impressive pile of aʻa clinkers covers the road twenty feet deep. Three years later I am rather surprised the road has not been re-cut into the observatory.

Here it is, lava across the road, power lines dangling, as far as you can go unless you are willing to abuse yourself crossing 300 yards of jagged aʻa. I sent the drone for a look.