Carly Kovacik and myself successfully summited the 13,800 foot tall Mauna Kea volcano on the island of Hawai'i. Mauna Kea is a volcano currently resting, unlike its nearby and much more massive neighbor Mauna Loa, which erupted as recently as a month before our visit. Carly and I began our trek near 9000 feet MSL. We checked in with rangers, then hiked up volcanic dirt, ash, pumice, and debris for multiple hours. We eventually reached snow level on the mountain near 12,000 feet...pretty cool hiking on snow in a tropical island. Coming directly from sea level, the elevation gain occasionally gave me a drunk feeling...but the feeling disappeared as I acclimated near the summit. After around 4 hours of hiking, the telescope covered summit of Mauna Kea came into view. We made a final push to the highest telescope, then decided to humbly tag the main summit, which is generally frowned upon by Hawaiians...but again, we were humble and said a prayer of thanks at the top. On the way back down Mauna Kea, we decided to take the service road, which was steep, and subsequently was tough on my legs...they simply didn't want to shuffle fast enough to keep up with the rapid elevation loss. Nevertheless, we made it down, checked back in with the rangers, and then headed to Hilo for an awesome meal at Cafe Pesto (I highly recommend that place if you are in Hilo).
Google map location is here.
No comments:
Post a Comment