Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park is famous for eruptions and lava, so many come hoping to see this spectacle of nature. The park is also famous for the crowds, particularly at the more popular viewpoints and trailheads. While the park is enormous, only a small portion of the park is easily accessible and even then the crowds tend to concentrate at the summit of Kilauea and along the rim of the caldera.
Those like myself who enjoy the park will often plan outings specifically to avoid the crowds, and fortunately this is relatively easy to do. Visiting the lesser used sections of the park is a good tactic. A visit to the park’s Kahuku unit is a good choice. Or perhaps a hike into the Ka‘u Desert.
Sometime you want to see the popular sections, this is also possible. One major hint… Early mornings.
The advice I give over and over… If you want to see an eruption without fighting for parking or standing shoulder to shoulder at the viewpoint… Go before dawn. Get there in the dark, enjoy the spectacle of bright lava in the morning gloaming followed by the glory of sunrise. There will be other folks at the viewpoints, but not the evening masses.
This works for other parts of the park as well, the real crowds tend to arrive after 8am or even 9am for more distant parts of the park. The mass of tourists take an hour or more to have breakfast and drive to the park. In the hours between dawn and 9am you may very well have parts of the park to yourself that are normally quite crowded.
Back in January I had set an alarm for the wee hours of the morning. The plan was to drive down to one of the pali viewpoints and use a small telescope to enjoy the southern stars. This turned out to be quite enjoyable, if somewhat cut short by a morning rainshower.
As dawn arrived so did the rain in ernest, so I packed up and drove back towards the summit intending to find breakfast. As I passed Nāhuku I found a completly empty parking lot and decided to stop, breakfast could wait.
This lava tube is normally crowded, with no parking available and orbiting vehicles trying to find a place. The path into Nāhuku is a steady flow of visitors, with chatter drowning out the birdsong in the canopy above.
This particular morning was turning into a lovely day, the rainforest was true to the name, a soft and steady rain creating an ambience that just felt right in this place. I walked the path alone for the first time I could remember, enjoying the rain dripping through the hāpu’u ferns, the birdsong above, and the solitude. The forest seemed more alive, the foliage intensely green in the gloomy light, everywhere I looked a scene begged for attention with the camera.
At the entrance to the lava tube itself is a small bridge. Posing on this bridge in front of the dark entrance is an excellent backdrop for a photo and a popular one as a result. I have used the setting myself for a few travel portraits over the years. There is usually a small group of people waiting their turn to take a photo, cell phones handed to strangers to shoot couples and families together on the bridge.
On this morning I took the opportinuty to shoot a few photos and even some video with no people to wandering through the scene. I set up a tripod to allow careful framing and steady video, using my new GoPro for its immunity to the steady rain. As I shot a couple of folks did wander up, obviously enjoying the uncrowded path in the forest as much as I was. We struck up a conversation for a moment and I mentioned the usual crowd at this bridge. They looked and thought for a moment then passed me a phone with a laugh. I was more than happy to take a photo of the two of them together.
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