We flew over to the Big Island today and absolutely loved our time exploring the island. We headed straight from the airport to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Here we are at Mauna Loa, the second largest volcano in the world and one of five volcanoes that formed the island of Hawaii. This photo shows the summit of Mauna Loa, active and erupting for the last 700,000 years. Amazing sight for sure!
We then began our 4 mile trek through a rain forest to navigate Kilauea, another active volcano crater. This hike was probably the best we have ever done with regard to the variety of terrain and for the sheer fact that we were hiking an ACTIVE VOLCANO CRATER!
These are the steam vents we passed through along our hike, you truly cannot imagine the heat that they are generating. It was like being in a steam shower even standing several feet back from the crevice.
This is the caldera floor, if you enlarge the photo you can see people walking right in the middle (they are tiny specks in the photo), this will give some idea of the magnitude of Kilauea.
Almost to the bottom of the caldera!
We made it!
With minor injuries...
Truly fascinating to walk through and experience!
Once back to the summit, we hiked to Nahuku, the Thurston lava tube, another unbelievable sight.
After a full day of amazing hikes and spectacular landscapes and fun time together as a family, we drove out of the volcano to this, another gift!
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