Hawaii
The Big Island

Photo by Brad Lewis..click for larger image (135k)

n 1990, inhabitants of the southern-most part of the U.S. watched their town be completely destroyed as the world's most active volcano sent fiery molten rock from the mountains to the sea. Natives had long lived side by side with the one they know as Pele, the beautiful and terrible goddess of the volcano, but this first-hand education on her awesome power was something else again. The lava was slow, but unstoppable; unpredictable, and unforgiving. As it approached the Kalapana Gardens Subdivision in the early Spring of that year, residents' reactions were mixed, some professing unconcern, saying they had always known that there were no guarantees of permanence in Pele's shadow, some clinging to a conviction that she would stop short of their property, at least. Some were able to save much of their property, or even move their homes in time, but many could not afford to take elaborate measures or simply procrastinated, vainly and desperately hoping their homes would be spared.

The volcano was producing half a million to 650,000 cubic yards of lava per day: molten rock at a temperature of two thousand degrees. It had been erupting continuously since January of 1983, and had threatened this neighborhood before, though the first time since the 1700s had been in 1977. In 1977, lava had come within half a mile of Kalapana Gardens, but after that scare, Pele had let the area be for nearly a decade.

Then, in December of 1986, in a one-day rampage, a lava flow had burnt seventeen homes in the subdivision. And during the Summer of 1989, access to neighboring Royal Gardens had been completely cut off by lava flows, and most of that neighborhood's homes destroyed. The lava had also cremated (and then buried) the $1.5 million visitor's center at the Wahaula Heiau, though the sacred site of the heiau itself had been somehow left untouched... Nevertheless, despite all of their knowledge of the island's volcanic history, the residents of Kalapana Gardens found themselves unprepared for the slow but unrelenting violence of Madam Pele's next moves. How can one prepare?

The lava approaches, its leading edge a curtain of fire as grasses, bushes, or even asphalt roads are ignited by the extreme heat. At a distance of, say, a hundred yards from a house, it pauses, kindling hope in the hearts of the residents. A few days later, it creeps forward, up to the edge of the back yard, and stops again. A week goes by. Another. And then, within scant hours, the flow resumes and the house is consumed by fire, and then covered with feet of cooling black rock, its surface rippling and twisting like a frozen ocean. A family watches their house catch fire, and then blaze, popping and spitting, windows crashing out. They are ready, have removed their furniture, have known, in fact, for days that it would burn. And yet their foreknowledge has really gained them very little, as the house of their dreams becomes smoke and ash, a ghost caught on waiting videotape.

Whoa...

Such is the devastation in the wake of The Big Island of Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano. And it is but an introduction to the raw power of this amazing island.

Superlatives abound when describing Hawaii. It is the largest of the islands by far, so big that each of its five districts is bigger than any of the other islands in the chain. Its climate is certainly the most diverse of any area of its size. Every climate on earth is represented, save only one. Cactus dots the landscape by Honokaa, coffee blooms among clouds of bougainvillea by Kealekekua, sweet-smelling plumeria cover Kailua town, and orchids grow wild along the roadsides in Hilo. From the air, one sees the rainforest in Puna, and arid Waikoloa, fertile grasslands in Kohala, the Ka'u Desert and mighty snow-capped Mauna Kea.

Mauna Kea has been reckoned as the tallest mountain in the world. If we consider her rise from the bottom of the ocean floor where she began, she towers to some 30,000 feet, several hundred feet higher than Everest. Though skiing facilities are minimal, each year sees a season when she bears enough snow for a few die-hards to enjoy some runs over her glacier-carved slopes. And Mauna Loa, though her ascent into the heavens is so gradual that it tends to fool the eye, is nearly as tall, and certainly has the greatest mass of any mountain in the world: about 100 times as great as Fuji or Shasta.

The Big Island has some of the newest land in the world too, for Pele's power is a creative, as well as a destructive one. The eruption that began in 1983 has already added over 180 acres of land to the island. These new beaches, some of them as yet untrodden by a human foot, are a spectacular piece of work indeed. Although the Big Island's most beloved black sand beach, Kaimu, was taken in 1990 (not long after Kalapana was destroyed) several beautiful black sand beaches still exist, the most popular being at Punalu'u in the south.

The southern tip of the Big Island, known as South Point, is the southern-most place in the United States and the site of the unique and spectacular Green Sand Beach. A cinder cone lined with the rare semi-precious mineral olivine collapsed here, and the tiny green crystals form the sand along this small strip of coastline.

So much to see! Throw in the famous City of Refuge, Captain Cook's Monument, the dramatic cliffs along the Hamakua Coast, the majesty of Akaka Falls, and the incomparable beauty of Waipio Valley, and one begins to realize that the Big Island of Hawaii is not a trip to be missed.

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