What is Hawaii without volcanoes? We visited the Volcano National Park and it was AWESOME!

The park is composed of two volcanoes: Kīlauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, and Mauna Loa, the world’s most massive one.

The main Crater

Halema’uma’u Crater is the main crater of Kilauea: the activity is constant in this crater and the lava’s level goes up and down depending on the activity. The view from the Jaggar Museum, where you can learn about the formation of the Hawaiian Islands, is amazing day and night.

Kilauea Iki Lava Lake

We also visited Thurston Lava Tube, a tube formed when lava drained from it some 350-500 years ago.

The last lava flow

We took the Chain of Craters Road, a 20 miles road starting near the Crater and ending near the sea. The road was actually covered by a lava flow in 2007 and is now one of the main attractions of Volcano Park. The flow cut the road and ended in the ocean, offering an impressive view!

 Hawaiian petroglyphs

The scenic drive is incredible, going though numerous lava flows (from 1975 to current) among palm trees and with the ocean as a background.

Lava dog

Hiking Mauna Ulu volcano

Hiking a volcano was the highlight of our stay on Big island! We started by flowing a trail leading us to pu’u huluhulu volcano’s view point (it’s an active cinder cone) : as we were enjoing the view, we decided that is was an awesome idea to climb that volcano!

We made it to the summit – fairly fast since nothing was standing on your way but solid lava – and had a breath-taking view of the crater! Fumes were everywhere and we were crawling on the ground to have a look at the inside of the crater. What an experience!

               

Our only regret about our trip to Hawaii is that we didn’t see flowing lava. The main lava tube gaining the sea broke recently and we couldn’t see lava! Hawaii, we’ll be back!