Wot we did on our holidays…

…walked across the most active volcano in the world!

This is part of the caldera of Kilauea volcano on Hilo, the ‘big island’ of the Hawaiian chain and the only one that is still volcanically active. This is where all the spectacular footage of lava flows and steam vents comes from and where, if I recall correctly, the Brady Bunch fell foul an ancient Hawaiian curse because they tried to take some of the lava rock with them*.

So anyway, here is the crater:

What happened is that, in about 1957, this crater was a pond of molten lava about 300 feet deep. You can see the crinkly edges, where it dried a bit like crispy cheese:

See that reddish spot in the far-right middle section of the caldera wall? That is where the lave came out, shooting up to 600 feet in the air for several weeks, building the slag heap behind it, and filling the crater with hundreds of feet of molten rock.

Today, it has cooled down enough that you can walk across the floor, and rainforest plants have already begun to take root in the very friable, brittle rock:

It feels like walking on the moon, or Mars, in boardshorts…

The fractured zones are where the molten rock solidified into glass shards. It’s like scuttling across the ice-cream of a very angry god who likes pain.

Vents like this lead directly down 200 feet or so to where the lava is still cooling. Natural rainwater seeps into the rock and emerges from these vents as steam. You can quite easily scald your hand if you hold it near a vent**. Also, just inside the entrance there are tiny heat-loving lichens and ferns that sit quietly in the warm steam, about 4000 feet above sea-level.

This last crater you cannot walk across because it is still active and choking to death on hydrogen sulfide is bad for your health:

During the 19th century, this crater spewed lava fountains continuously for almost sixty years, and wealthy travelers from across the world came to marvel at the sight. Among them was Mark Twain, whose wit and erudition were completely useless for capturing what it actually looked like. Camera manufacturers of the world missed it by 50 years and have been kicking themselves ever since. All we are left with is drawings by well-to-do Victorian Britons, and latter-day photographs of the caldera now that things have calmed down a bit.

* Moral of the episode: Don’t take ancient volcanic lava rock from Hawaii or you will upset the goddess Pele. It is also possible that I have completely forgotten the storyline of the Brady Bunch in Hawaii Special. Next week: Cindy hates braces!
** It also helps to be stupid.