I am invited to give another tour in German after having led my first “German-exlusive” (almost Swiss-German exclusive, actually) Summit Hike a few days back. This time it is for a booked tour group from Austria, and the intention is to give them something longer than just a tour across the summit, therefore we picked the tour of “Into the Volcano”, about 3 miles and 2.5 – 3 hours in length, to be the right duration and content.

I haven’t given that tour myself yet and only followed it once, so I was glad that Travis scheduled one for the afternoon and that I could “shadow” him. While my basic content is definitely there (in terms of insight, this is an extended summit talk with more opportunities to discuss the permanent change in and around Kilauea and to experience some first hand specimen of landslide rock samples, Pele’s Hair, lava rocks, young pioneering Ohia Lehua, Sandalwood and many more), walking past so many other things needs a profound knowledge for any possible questions or spontaneous or break outs. Travis proved this just perfectly, as a native to this island he has so many stories and legends to share that I really need to pick up, including the legends between the Hawaii State Fish

Humuhumunukunukuapua’a – “fish that grunts like a pig”

and his fight with Pele Honua Mea (the sacred earth) / Pele ai honua (who devours the land) and her sister

Hiʻiakaikapoliopele.

With some further ideas noted down and the trail organized with many photographs to follow up, I will do this trail myself again and put down my outline and theme to have it ready next week. This looks like really a good 2nd stage trail for myself before I up the difficulty further and will be working on a more complex and probably longer trail – not sure which one, it may become Kilauea Iki, which seems to have been offered rarely recently, or a combination of Sulphur&Steam, Earthquake and Halema’uma’u trail.

But for now, it is my weekend…