KC's Hawaii Observing Run

March 1 to March 8, 2001

Background: The summit of Mauna Kea is home to about half a dozen of the world's largest and most sophisticated observatories, and it sits at approximately 13,000 above sea level on the island of Hawaii.  Just getting there is a pretty extensive trek.  We first flew from Baltimore to Los Angeles to Maui to Honolulu to Hilo (on the big island of Hawaii).  The island is actually quite large, about the size of Connecticut, and from Hilo we took one of the University of Hawaii's 4-wheel drive vehicles up the Saddle Road (the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa). Here's a map of the island to get you started:

We arrived at night, so I didn't actually get to see the landscape on the way up to the mountain.  On the way down I discovered that it's an amazingly desolate scene -- black volcanic lava flows which sometimes look fluid, often jagged.  There are some trees and low shrubs, and surprisingly as you near the base camp, there are cattle ranches!  The rapidity with which life recolonizes these areas is impressive as well -- you can see the slow advance of green as you travel up the slope of the mountain.

The base camp for all the astronomers is called Hale' Pohaku, and is at an altitude of about 9,000 feet.  The complex comprises a main common building (cafeteria, computer rooms, recreation, etc.), three dormitories, and various maintainance buildings.  It's really quite dry, but luckily there's plently to drink (which is encouraged).  I myself didn't feel particularly disoriented when I arrived at 9,000ft -- that came later up the mountain...


On the left, the main building.  One of the dormitories on the very right.  The land is
extremely dry, but we actually saw some small animals here.
 


This is the view looking over the slopes of Mauna Kea.  As you can see, we've passed
the tree line, and there are only small shrubs and bushes in this zone.

 
 
 


I walked up a dusty maintainance road, and here is a view looking down the slope onto
the base camp.  The incredibly long slope of Mauna Loa is in the background rising to the right.


Around the base camp, there are lots of small craters, like the one on the far left in this picture.
From this view, standing on top of one of these, you can see Hale' Pohaku (base camp), and
the zigzagging (dirt) access road up the mountain in the background.  There's also a visitor's center
in the foreground (not the two white roofs, but the building behind that) where visitors are encouraged
to wait before proceeding up the mountain (and discouraged from trying it with a 2-wheel drive vehicle).


This is the view facing the opposite way from that same crater, now looking down the mountain.
The base camp itself is often above the cloud inversion layer, which attests to the excellent observing
conditions at this site.  Only on one afternoon out of the five days I was there did the clouds rise above
this typical altitude limit.


The ground color varies quite a lot (due to iron content I suppose), and
as you can see in this picture, can go from almost red to dark green/brown.
 
 


One more photo, looking down the slope of the mountain again.



Driving to the top of the mountain from Hale' Pohaku takes about half an hour,
and I think the drive is something like 15 miles on very winding roads.  We would
drive to the top each day just before sunset, and it wasn't uncommon to see vanloads
of people driving up as well to catch a glimpse of this terrific sunset.
 


Here's the view from our jeep going up the mountain.  The road here is paved, but in fact
it's a dirt road for the steepest first half of the trip from Hale' Pohaku.  You can see here
(starting from the left) the CFHT (Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope, 3.6m), the Gemini
8m telescope, and one of the University of Hawaii's telescopes (2.2m).  All of the telescopes
are mindblowingly big up here, and the pictures don't seem to do justice to the sheer awe
I experienced when seeing them for the first time.


Ok, let's see if I can get the order correct -- from the left to right, these are the JCMT (James Clerk
Maxwell Telescope, 15m radio dish), the CSO (Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, 10.4m radio dish),
the Subaru 8m optical telescope (Japan), and the famous Keck I and Keck II (twin 10m optical telescopes).

 
 

We were observing at the IRTF (NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility), which ironically I
don't have a picture of.  But from our front steps there's a great view of the double Keck telescopes.
Here are a series of pictures taken around sunset!



I was surprised how quickly and how much I felt the effects of altitude -- just a few minutes after reaching the top on the first night, I experienced a mild headache, and doing any kind of physical task (like walking) took the wind out of me.  It didn't help that we had to observe all night, but after an aspirin, things got better.  Gradually over the next four days, the effects became milder each time we went up to the top.
 

Once every few hours during the night, we'd go outside and survey the sky for high
cirrus that would contaminate our observations.  In general, we were lucky and didn't
get much of this, but this did give us the opportunity to use some pretty neat night vision
goggles:


Even though the site is *very* dark, you can see the lights of nearby towns with the
image intensification.


During the drive down the mountain, the view of Mauna Loa (in the background here) is
amazing.  The slope is so gentle (the longest slope in the world, counting the underwater part...)
that the peak doesn't look that high.  But in fact, it's 13,677 feet.  There are no telescopes
on this mountain (still an active volcano?), but the NOAA has a weather observatory there.

In the two days that I had after our observing run, I went to some pretty interesting places.
First, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park:


Even before arriving at the caldera, there are indications that the entire region is an active
geothermal area.  Here's a place called Sulphur Springs, where you can walk on a mile or so
long path, and come across cracks and fissures in the ground out of which steam and of course,
sulphurous smells are expelled.
 
 

The crack in this picture is just a small segment of a very long opening in the ground that must run for over 100 yards.  It also has numerous smaller holes and openings that run beside it, all belching steam (next picture).  The ground is actually warm to the touch here!


 

Interesting to me was the fact that by just walking about 100 yards away from the beaten path and road, I didn't see a single other person for about two hours.  Keep in mind that this is a very popular park.  I guess most people just stay with their buses and cars, and get out to take a look when there's a turnoff on the road.  It's really a shame (for them, but nice for me) that few people choose to explore further -- the paths are really quiet and peaceful.
 
 


Here's another fissure in the ground, and in the background you can
see a small glimpse of the crater, which is also mind-bogglingly huge.


As I walked up the path, which seems like any other sort of
grassland environment, I was completely unprepared for the scale
of devastation upon reaching the edge of the Kilauea caldera, shown in the panorama here:


 Again, you can see steam rising out of the ground near the path.  This covers almost 180 degrees of view, and is really incredible.  The crater is some 5 miles across, and the scene is otherworldly.  You can actually walk down there, but few people do -- it's a long way across and the weather changed rapidly on the day I was there.
 
 

Here are some more photos of the caldera.  You can see that there's a second crater within the
larger one -- it's called Halema'uma'u, and it's about 1/2 a mile across.

 
 




The sulphur-yellow features are quite obvious in Halema'uma'u.  This is a still a very hot
and active area within the larger crater.


 
 
 

See the person walking in this picture?  He's standing on the steaming mound near the lower left:


In many places on the island, the lava flows from Mauna Loa have intersected
with human development.  This picture shows a lava flow from 1974 that cut
through a road.  In the background is the treeline, showing the extent of the flow.
 


Here's the road that the lava cut through, which obviously had to be recut and paved.

I spent my two extra days exploring from Hilo, a rather industrial town (as opposed to Kona, the very touristy resort town on the other side of the island).  Hilo is quite close to the Volcanoes National Park and lots of other water-based scenery...

 
 


On the coast north of Hilo, there are lots of beautiful bays and inlets.  It's quite humid on
the east side of the island (where ocean winds first hit the Hawaiian chain and dump their
moisture).  As a result, the vegetation is very happy.


These may look like any old bamboo stands, but each bamboo stalk
is about as thick as a three liter plastic soda bottle.




This is a view of Akaka Falls -- it was very misty that morning, and the
contrast is kind of low.  It began pouring about 3 minutes after this.


Cattle farm near the falls...

 
 
 

I decided to drive to the southeastern point of the island, supposedly the southermost point in the United States. Along the way were
some beautiful views of what is basically a rain forest:

 
 


The road to the tip of the island is unmarked, and unpaved dirt.  There isn't much to see
out at the point, except for a metal lighthouse structure and ocean all the way to California:


 


 

Thanks for visiting!!
Kuenley Chiu
4/7/01