Hawaii Vaca, Post 16 - Hawai'i Volcanoes Ntnl Park, Pt. 2

So, we made it thru the visitor center in the previous post and after another bit of driving, albeit, a MUCH shorter trip, we're ready for our hike!

I had no idea until looking at this picture, that we were only about 1.5 - 2 miles away from the steam vents that we saw from the visitor center. We hiked the smaller basin off to the right of the photo.

Over on the upper right'ish corner, the green marker from google maps is marking the Kiluaea Iki Trailhead,  which is basically where we parked the rental vehicle and began our hike.  We took that upper path across the top of the pic and basically turned left until you can see that little squiggely switch-back type path on the far left.  Obviously, that's where the trail descended to the basin floor.

This is one of the first views that you come to when the trees start to open up!  You can see the steam vent in the background here.

Just a bit further on up the trail with a similar view.  This time, however, you can see the path (the lighter colored line) on the basin floor.  In real life, you could see tiny, tiny people down there too, but I can't see them in the pic.  It hadn't hit me yet, that it was going to be us down there after quite bit of time has passed!

So what does a trail on the top of a volcano rim look like?  Something like this!

This freaked me out a bit...  This is the edge of the trail, looking straight down the wall of the crater rim! I'm not afraid of heights but Mr. Calebber had asked if he could hike on up ahead and we had allowed it. When he says hike, he really means something betwixt jogging & running!  We established a rule that he was not to get two trail markers ahead of us at any time. If he did, he was to wait until one of us caught up with him.  What occurred to me at this point is that a fella traveling a trail at his speed would have a much greater chance of missing said markers.  And then, there's warnings on some of the trails about "false floors" (I forget the Hawai'ian name).  But they are dead/dying vegetation laying on the tops of certain types of trees and people mistake it for terra firma...  but usually only once. 

The steam vents again as we're making our way across the top of the rim.

That's Robby up ahead.  At this point, we haven't seen Caleb for probably 10 minutes and there's an uneasy feeling about that very fact.

Eventually, we found him waiting at one of the markers and we restated our rules to only include one marker and that he was to be VERY careful.  As you can see in the photo, he's running...

Hey!  Now we can tell that we're making progress as that big bald rocky area is moving around to behind us on our travels!

Even better, we've rounded a corner and can now see the area in which we started.  This view also provides a much clearer perspective of the "bowl".

I kept taking pictures of this formation without ever considering the fact that we'd be right down by it in another 1/2 hour or so.

Had a great big, wide opening at the turning point to descend which provided a nice shot over looking the MUCH larger basin (from that top map picture).

THANK GOD FOR RAILINGS!!!  That was a drop!

And down we go!  That's Caleb with Mom now.  He's got his blue sweatshirt tucked in the backpack because he was hot, presumably from all the dang running!

That's Dad and Robby from Mom and Caleb's perspective.

It took me a bit to figure it out, but these steps reminded me of a place or something...  It was the unevenness about them. One step might have been only three inches high, the next 12 inches.   Oh yes!  It was the Great Wall of China on that snowy morning in 2011!  The temp was quite different, but the capacity to do something wildly stupid and painful was similar!

There's running boy, all smiles and happy (ie, he's not hungry... yet.).

We made it to the basin floor!!  Mom and Caleb dressing up the next portion of our hike.  It's much hotter down here!

So, without having gone thru the remaining pictures in the folder, I think the next post will wrap up the posts about Volcanoes National Park, but there may be an additional one about the Thurston Lava Tube that we did after this hike.  Not that either boy was happy about that...