A Moonlight Trek into Hell with George and Uncle Harry

Dangerous area ? ﾁ Does that mean anything, George ?" I asked our
guide, George Applegate, as my flashlight caught the sign along the side
of the road. I then noticed there ﾁ wasn't ﾁ any road Û,2 only billowy
wastes of coal-black lava lay before us.

Just follow me," George said as he brushed past the sign and started
hoofing and rock-hopping across a terrain that looked like hardened cake
batter. And keep the flashlights on and watch your step." Beneath
our feet was a hardened, smooth, ropy lava as black as ink known as
ﾁ pahoehoe, whose cooling caused layer upon layer to cross and
crisscross in every conceivable angle and could best be described as the
handiwork of a galactic taffy pull. This is in contrast to aa ( ﾁ ah - ah)
ﾁ lava, which is chunky and looks like overgrown cinders. An occasional
fissure in the jagged rock spewed sulfurous vapors into the night.

Did you see the sign about sulfur fumes back there?" someone shouted
from the rear of the pack.

Don't breath," George yelled.

We then began what could only described as a trek into hell" led by our
two entertaining leaders, George, and the bus driver, Uncle Harry.
George led the way and Uncle Harry helped a 75-year-old woman from
Palm Springs who refused to stay in the bus with her namby-pamby
husband. Ahead of us a mile or so we could see molten lava boiling and
surging down the mountainside where it exploded into the sea with the
virulence of a witches' cauldron. Nighttime is the best time to see a
volcano.
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We are seeing the creation of the earth," I could hear George saying.

And the end of ours," someone behind me said.

…ﾁ Craaaaaaash! ﾁ I then heard the crumbling of lava beneath my feet

as I started sliding down an escarpment into inky darkness. Where to, I
did not know since the full moon momentarily slipped behind a cloud,
and I had temporarily shut off my flashlight to engulf myself in the
surreal landscape. Actually, I wasn't really that scared since the 75-
year-old woman was directly ahead of me and I thought if she could
make it so could I. Later I learned she was scared out of her wits on the
entire hike.

Stay in single file," I heard George saying from the front of the small
caravan of flashlights. We were now getting closer to the river of red-hot
lava and could hear gigantic explosions and hissing sounds as it crashed
into the sea, giving rise to huge clouds of steam that filled the moonlit
sky.

My wife and I had come to Hawaii to experience a once-in-a-lifetime

meeting with Madame Pele, the tempestuous Polynesian goddess of fire
who controls the activity of Hawaii's volcanoes. No doubt Madame Pele
was angry in 1983 when a fiery fudge-like lava began spewing out a vent
on the side of Kilauea, the most active volcano on earth on the Hawaiian
island of Hawaii (called the Big Island). Although the molten ooze swept
over forests, roads, and everything in its path, including a small village,
it has provided a geological sideshow for upwards of two million visitors a
year. ﾁ…

The volcanoes of Hawaii are not as explosive as those along the Pacific
rim like Mt. St. Helens, but are ﾁ shield ﾁ volcanoes, whose eruptions can
be viewed with relative safety.
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Stop!" I could hear George saying ahead of us. Ten people stopped on a
dime. This looks like a nice place for a picnic." So for the next hour we
sat on the rocks, ate cookies, and watched a torrent of lava as it gushed
down the mountainside a scant quarter of a mile from us. Occasionally,
a block of crust would break off and get carried along on the bubbling
lava like a block of ice on a thawing river. Then, all of a sudden a
thunderous explosion would hurl gobs of a fiery-red lava into the pitch-
black air releasing the customary plume of steam. I didn't know whether I
was watching a spectacle from Heaven or Hell. I only knew I could have
watched it all night long. Even the faint taste of sulfur in the back of my
throat added to the otherworldly atmosphere.

Is anyone ready to head back to the bus ?" George finally asked. Did
anyone remember to bring a compass ?" After the usual har, har, hars, I
realized that without the moon poking through the clouds, the sky was
pitch black and finding one's way back across the lava flow even with
small flashlights would seem to be an impossible task.

Just follow me," George says, 'll try to find our way out of this place by
dawn. If we get lost we can always make a human sacrifice to Madame
Pele. It's customary to take the women first." More yucking and the
caravan of flashlights slowly started making its way across the barren
wasteland to the sound of crunching lava.

According to geologists the Hawaiian islands sit on the Pacific Plate, a

giant piece of the earth's crust that is slowly moving northwest at about
four inches per year. (Which translates into a mile about every 16,000
years.) This plate passes over a stationary hot spot" where molten lava
periodically wells up out of the earth's interior and pushes through the
Pacific Plate thus forming islands. Hence, the most northwestern and
oldest Hawaiian island of Kauai passed over the hot spot about five
million years ago, and the most southeastern and youngest Big Island of
Hawaii is currently over the hot spot. Just southeast of the Big Island a
new island, dubbed Loihi, is in the process of being created and
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geologists expect it to rise above the surface of the ocean in a few years,
geologically speaking, maybe 10,000.

The Hawaiian Islands form the tops of the world's tallest mountain range.
They do not have the high ﾁ altitude of the Himalayan mountains, but
measured from its base at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, the Big
Island's Mauna Kea is the world's ﾁ tallest ﾁ mountain at 32,000 feet.
(For trivia buffs the southernmost point in the United States is ﾁ not ﾁ Key
West, Florida but at ﾁ Ka Lai ﾁ on the south coast of the Big Island of
Hawaii.)

And don't pick up any rocks" I could hear George saying He was, of
course, making reference to the fact that, first of all, it was against the
law to remove pieces of lava from the Park, and, secondly, to the curse of
Madame Pele. George told us the Park Service had dozens of letters
from former Park visitors returning smuggled rocks after experiencing
strange misfortunes after returning home. Madame Pele takes a dim
view of rock rustlers.

What about the ones in our shoes ?" someone groused from the back.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park ﾁ on the Big Island of Hawaii is the most
unusual of all the National Parks in the U. S. and ranges from stark
expanses of lava flows to tropical green jungles with the climate ranging
from desert to rain forest. There are few places on earth where these
dramatic extremes are in such close proximity. We had landed just that
day at the airport of Hilo on the western or windward side of the Big
Island and the side nearest the Kilaeua volcano.

We could hear George singing Blue Hawaii" ahead of us as the hissing of

steam from behind us became fainter. Someone made a wisecrack
about comparing George's singing and the hissing of the lava, but he
didn't hear it. Actually, being a former singer was one of George's
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seemingly endless talents and on the bus ride back to our lodge, he sang
Hawaiian folk songs for us.

Although trade winds flow east to west across the Pacific, they tend to
curve around when they reach the North American continent in such a
way that they blow from northeast to southwest across the Hawaiian
Islands. Hence, the moisture laden air deposits its water on the
northwestern or windward mountain slopes and leaves dry and sunny the
southwestern or leeward coast. Hence, a wide variety of landscapes
within very short distances.

I've never been so scared in my life," the woman from Palm Springs said
as we finally reached the road. She laughed and gave Uncle Harry total
credit for her survival.

Neither was I," Uncle Harry said. I only assumed he was joking.

- the end -