Waiting for Episode 36

It was going to be Sunday.

Regular checking of the tiltmeter data, watching the glow and spatter in the livestream cameras, and nearly a year of experience with the current eruption’s repetitive episodes had allowed me to be fairly certain. Others were betting it would be Friday or Saturday. Some folks had been camping out on the volcano for days. I was sure… Sunday, probably Sunday morning.

Thus I readied the camera gear, made sure the car was fully fueled, and got to bed early Saturday evening for an early morning run.

The standard plan… A 2am alarm followed by a 4am arrival in the park. Straight to my selected viewpoint. In this case I would go for a viewpoint near KMC as much of the overflow activity was from the north vent and the nothern rim would give a better view.

I was really hoping the eruption would start in the night, with a high lava fountain greeting a Sunday dawn. My hope was in vain, the fountains would not appear until a little after 11am.

Not that there was nothing to see before the main event, quite the contrary, vigorous overflows sent lava flowing down the apron in front of the vent. Every few minutes would see another surge of lava, bright orange in the predawn gloom, eventually waning, crusting over, and darkening before another surge brought a renewed bright flow.

With the dawn’s first light a familiar face arrived, a gentleman I had met before at these viewpoints. Scott runs a tour service called Apau Hawaii Tours, giving private excursions to the volcano. This morning would see him doing a live stream of the eruption.

Scott and I chatted, compared gear, wondered when the fountains would appear, and generally enjoyed a lovely dawn over the caldera. A very relaxing scene… Lava, birdsong, a gentle breeze, the start of a good day.

But no lava fountains.

With dawn well advanced I gave up for the moment. I headed for the breakfast buffet at Volcano House. An all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet with a lovely view of the caldera? I could keep an eye on the eruption while stuffing myself, fueling up for a day in the park… Perfect.

Over breakfast I considered an alternate plan… No eruption yet. What about a little hike to pass the time. I realized a perfect hike was the Halemaʻumaʻu / Byron Ledge loop that starts right in front of Volcano House, I had not done this trail for years. Three miles, 500 feet down and up, rich ʻōhiʻa forest with good views of the caldera. I just left the car parked where it was and hit the trail.

The Halemaʻumaʻu trail is likely the oldest existing trail in the park, giving access from Volcano House to the caldera floor. As I hike I realize that I am following the footsteps of countless visitors to Kilauea, including famous characters of centuries past. Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) vividly describes this same trail in his 1872 travalogue Roughing It, climbing down to visit a lava lake at Halemaʻumaʻu in the night.

The next night was appointed for a visit to the bottom of the crater, for we desired to traverse its floor and see the “North Lake” (of fire) which lay two miles away, toward the further wall. After dark half a dozen of us set out, with lanterns and native guides, and climbed down a crazy, thousand-foot pathway in a crevice fractured in the crater wall, and reached the bottom in safety.

Roughing It, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), 1972

I do not think I would describe the trail as being quite that dramatic, but then Mark Twain was prone to a little creative license in his writing.

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Looking back I realize the entire day was a series of conversations. I met folks from all over the world, chatting and answering questions about the volcano.

Sharing the view with the little telescope or binoculars is one start to the conversation. The other conversation starter was the question everyone was asking this day… When will the eruption start? I have always suspected that my bearded, somewhat jovial appearance has always made me more approachable or at least non-threatening. Put that together with good answers and the conversation opens up and rolls.

Visitors to the volcano are hungry for good information. One question, one statement from me that betrays that I know more than a little about the volcano and the questions start. A bit of a crowd and the questions come hard and fast, I can see others waiting to get their question in and answered.

I suspect that someone giving personal answers connects to visitor’s questions better than any of the written displays that are available at the rim viewpoints. The park service has done a wonderful job with the signage, I have read pretty much all of it, but the signs often address the specific features of their location and not the larger picture.

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It was in the middle of another of these conversations when everything changed.

At the top of the switchbacks climbing up from the caldera floor to Byron Ledge I took a break, a lovely spot with an open view of the caldera and a convenient stump to sit on. Here a visiting family found me while stopping to enjoy the same vista. We chatted, shared the binoculars, and discussed the impending eruption.

As yet another surge of lava started I was asked what would happen at the start of the eruption… “Oh… One of these surges will not stop, it will just get bigger and bigger until we have a thousand foot high lava fountain”. I though nothing of it as this current surge was much the same as dozens of others I had watched this morn. We watched, commented on a pretty splash of lava flowing down the apron, enjoying the view in binoculars… It did not stop.

When the first bit of real lava fountain appeared I knew this was it, we watched, it grew, the yelling started. Everyone was thrilled, this was what we all came to the volcano to see, and it happened. Within ten minutes the fountain of bright orange was above the caldera wall hundreds of feet high.

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Unfortunately shortly after the eruption started was when the misty rain moved in obscuring the view. I returned to the viewpoints near KMC, but the view was no better. Occasionally you could see the glow, or a vague shape of the high fountain, but photographic conditions were just bad.

The lack of strong wind did allow one part of the eruption to come through clearly… The roar. We heard the roar of gas before it was visually obvious that the lava fountian was started, sounding just like a distant jet aircraft. As the eruption grew so did the noise, now sounding like a jet takeoff just out of sight. When looking at a wall of mist instead of lava the roar was constant, teasing us when we wanted to see.

As usual the traffic went from heavy to gridlocked within an hour of the eruption start. National park staff and volunteers doing their best to direct traffic despite the government shutdown.

Hoping that things would improve near sunset I camped out in the car. I could dry off a bit, charge my phone, and check the USGS cameras which still had a clear view. There was no more luck to be had, the eruption ended well before sunset, quickly dropping to nothing in a matter of minutes a bit over five hours after it started, the shortest episode of the current eruption.