The theory stuff at school seems to be over, the last days are dedicated to pure “interpretation training”. The six principles of Freeman Tilden are kind of the holy grail for interpretation in the NPS, if not overall for interpreters. I really wonder if there is a basic translation into German available for this (“tour guide” or “outdoor guide” doesn’t really fit and I don’t really like the translation “Natur- und Kulturinterpretation”), and if things are done similarly in continental europe or non-English speaking Europe.

Beck and Cable’s more modern version will be, we understand, given to those of us who sit through the entire three-day deep-dive interpretation session. Ted Cable himself was invited to present, but honestly, I don’t think these were the most moving or interesting sessions, but it was really the interpretive examples and hands-on stuff from our HAVO Park Rangers themselves (most of them have a long history in the NPS and can recall examples from anywhere in the US!). And boy, do the “Youngster in Park” kids, that do this as a paid summer job, know a lot about their backgrounds and heritage, I am really embarrassed. If people asked me about local fishing tradition in Lake Constance and how they made good rope 500 years ago, or what the sugar trade meant between the Swiss and German side of the lake or why the railway is running where it currently is running and not to another place, I would be scratching my head and feel sooo lost.

We had our last hike through Halema’uma’u Crater today, 400 feet down and scrambling back up in quite a heat – summer seems to have come to Pele, too. While the demonstration of the Park Ranger was sometimes a bit too cheesy and over the top, the content and topics were really good and important and I have scribbled many notes on the back of the trail guide that I took with me. The “holistic” part and the general guiding theme really were outstanding, and going from Pele and the fighting with her sister to ‘Ohi’a lehua tree and the meaning connected to Pele to catastrophic land changes, invasive species and their problems and how they affect the landscape to earthquakes, landslides and climate change and even to Mars and back in all one short “journey in time” hike was really cool. Well well, high expectations to stand up to, I assume.

Tomorrow I will have to get my uniform at seven, so off to bed now. Oh, wait. The eye flash, I forgot about that one. Always make brief eye contact when dealing with newcomers at the visitors center. You can be sure to get the longest live of people queuing just for your advice! Small things seem to make the difference.

Interpretive Hike - Park Ranger in Action

We are currently undergoing the in-depth training of becoming good interpreters between National Park managed land to be preserved and understood and the visitors. Pretty good stuff, especially excellent demonstrations and examples of what we can use so that the visitors have a good time and enjoy themselves while learning at the same time about the speciality of this place and while it is worthwhile to cherish and preserve it. I guess we are well absorbed in all this learning material, especially as we will be needing it very, very soon as the training nears the end. We also have received our fourth person in the bunk house, so currently we are rooming together a bit more tightly until the volunteer who is sort of “left over” from the last stint as he wanted to attend this two-week training session. He will be leaving at the end of the week so I guess after that everyone gets his own final room unless things change and more people are coming in. In fact, it seems that I am the only one who was agreed to the full three months term minimum that was so important as a pre requirement, and it may well be that I am the only one remaining after the first week of August. Yay, house parties!! We’ll see 😉

Thanks also for Park Ranger Ben Dare Dundat for stopping by. He really gave an outstanding lesson in interpretive techniques us lucky guys participating at the training at KMC camp.

By now we have received plenty of information about the volcano and Hawai’ian culture and biology and how it all works together. Knowing and memorizing all this information and putting it right so it makes into a nice interpretive talk for the visitors is yet another thing. Shadowing a little bit the rangers at the information desk at the KVC (Kilauea Visitor Center) today showed, however, that most questions will be relatively easy to answer if you are scheduled for that task. Giving the daily talks and the special ranger-led hikes and activities will be way more demanding, I am sure, and preparing those will be key throughout the next week.

There is a need for getting the information from the various angles, and today was a good day in class. Ultimately, understanding what Kilauea and its neighboring big sisters are doing will only work if all the scientists use all the toolkits available to them and discuss and talk to each other to make all the data fit together in a nice puzzle that explains the situation most reasonably. Still, we will never be able to predict the exact behavior of the volcano or to time the next eruption to the minute, but hopefully the folks at HVO etc. will be able to see the next big one coming that will put the visitors and the people living inside or near the crater at risk so they can be warned.

The five basic tools in the toolkit presented to us today comprise
– Geology: Field observations, measurements and data from the field on active and past lava flows will always be a key piece in the puzzle. As J. Hutton already said: The past is the key to the present. With modern technology such as satellite and other means of remote sensing and tiny little webcams that can transmit excellent pictures 24/7, observation of the volcano has become a lot easier, and it sure makes for some stunning photographs and footage of eruptions, explosions, collapses and lava lake drainages and refillings that would otherwise have been missed.
– Seismology: There is a dense array of seismometers around the volcano and all across the island. Historic seismicity and the distribution of ongoing seismicity patterns helps understand sort of the “breathing pattern” of Kilauea et al. More, this is an indication of magma movement in the underground and helps tracking the summit and the rift zone magma behavior.
– Gas sampling: This seems to be one of the most important features up here at Kilauea, and various creative and new methods of gas sampling are constantly being tried out. Vog (volcanic gas) is really a problem around the island, especially as it tends to trap in places you wouldn’t expect it – such around the touristy places in Kona. Also here, remote sensing techniques have become very helpful in the recent past. The gas balance and emission patterns between Kilauea summit and Pu’u O’o also indicate the mutual behavior between the two.
– Deformation: Currently, on Kilauea it is all about DI, the Deflation-Inflation cycle. It is really like a breathing giant, and it is the ongoing DI cycle that keeps the fresh lava flows from entering the ocean. It seems that whenever Pu’u O’o has released a good quantity of lava to flow down the Pali (cliff) towards the ocean near Kalapana, Kilauea exhales and breathes and lowers the activity level so that the lava starts receding rather than advance its front, which is too bad really for viewing.
– Geophysics: All the nice little applications that we learnt at ETH are really in use here, too. Geomagnetics, gravity measurements, electric conductivity and various further indirect, non-invasive techniques are used to round up the full measurement array to get a better picture of this most active volcano in the world.

Speaking of which – the Kamoamoa episode is one of the discrete eruption events that is distinguished by the folks at HVO as being a major active one. It tok place in March 2011 and brought an end to a relatively abrupt inflation cycle. The lake level dropped immensely, indicating that magma had gone elsewhere – that is, to the rift zone. Ever since, there was a steady but slow inflation trend, and absolute levels are pretty high at the moment, so that’s good hope that Kilauea might put on a show soon (but you never know of course!). Compared to other volcanoes in the world, Kilauea is certainly not the most frightening or the most likely for very fierce eruptions, but it is really stunning to tell visitors that in fact they are watching an explosive ongoing eruption at the summit of Halema’uma’u right now. Where else in the world can you find a volcano that has been erupting constantly from TWO vents at the same time without full interruption since 1983? Right, you can’t!

Today it’s Friday and that means concluding the week with a BIG hike! We have the Ka’u desert on our program, and there was a choice of either doing a return hike or doing a full thru-hike to the other side of the Caldera, which would be approximately 9 miles if we hiked it direct, along the trail.
So there was another impressive line-up of scientists and teachers and interpreters who would show us around. After about an hour of theory in the classroom, we met at the Ka’u desert trailhead along Highway 11 and were accompanied by both a volcanology teacher and the Park’s archeologist to discover the footprints cast in a muddy lava and lapili fallout after the 1790 eruption event, when Keoua’s army and other traveled along this area. In addition to the preservation of the footprints, there is also a series of “C-shaped” low temporary shelters that acted as night camp for the travelers and protected them from ash, wind and rain. We checked upon the kaoiki fault system that belongs actually to Mauna Loa and not to Kilauea during the expansion of M. Loa towards the sea. This was sort of a competition between Mauna Loa and Kilauea, as they “cast” lava onto each other subsequently and mutually. In the sense of “Says Mauna Loa to Kilauea: I’ll lava you if you’ll lava me” 😉

We hiked across the Ke’amoku lava flow that is sharply separated into A’a flow first and then followed by soft and very nicely formed Pahoehoe flows later on. Here’s were you find the C-shapes and the first footprints. Futher footprints are all over the place, but given the desert area and the size of the protected park, archeologists are really busy to identify all the items in the field.

It was not always easy to find the trail as the common hiker, so we should always watch out for the carefully erected “A’hu” rock stacks that will guide the way. We arrived at a Tumulus along Kilauea’s eastern rift zone, the kind of feature you would find in your oven: Like a blackberry muffin, the lava welled up and formed cracks at the top of the “cake” so to say, before splitting open a little and ejecting just a little bit more. Remains an intense structure – a tumulus.

We reached the summit of the small and not so aptly named Mauna Iki (small mountain) and continued on along the principal Ka’u desert trail. It was getting hot, and our water and lunch provisions were dwindling rapidly. A cool wind was a welcome change, but this also meant we were likely to hit the plume – the gaseous exhalations of the active vent at Halema’uma’u, and at right about this time my SO2-beeper would go off, indicating a reading of more than .5 ppm of SO2 in the air. I think we reached about 9 ppm at the peak, just when we reached a bit more than halfway of the trail and the most interesting features. There was a lot of Pele’s hair, golden and long and quite wonderful were it not so stingy and probably unhealthy to inhale. We reached the twin pit craters and the bottomless cone and did of course peer into it, not without the required respect and awe, however. There were also a few hardy O’hia trees (rather shrubs) out here, and some tropical birds, quite astoninglishy.

We made it across the desert in good time and reached the end of the trail at the camp site we were to be picked up around 4.45 right when the van was shuttled down to get us. What a day! The rangers are really knowledgeable and always throw a story and a joke in. Thanks guys, although I am sure I will feel my muscles and legs tomorrow after what was probably more than 12 miles rather than the 9, with all the side trekking. Felt like back in the old field excursion days!

Well I guess there was nothing exciting going on that could be shared for you – more classroom training, seismology and volcanic gases, so the first one was really a high-level synopsis of at least 4 years of university study for me, so I must admit I kept falling asleep a little, although monitoring a volcano through earthquakes is certainly something different than trying to learn from destructive earthquakes to civilization. My apologies.
In the afternoon, office day. Getting to learn park rules, fee rules, visitor center rules, library rules. I got a glimpse of the draft schedule for the coming two weeks, so it looks like after classroom week next week I will be the opener or closer of the visitor center thereafter, and of course we volunteers will be working the weekend shifts.

So all I could think of to share with you in today’s blog comment is really a view into the room, and I make my way throughout and also outside the bunk house for the Intl. Volunteers to get you an idea of what this looks like. So let’s start with the bedroom that I may or may not have to share from next week on. Not much to say.

Today was like a really full day – busy and fun, we learnt a lot although some of it was quite over our heads:
It was mostly Hawaiian culture, language, Hula and tradition on the menu.
We learnt about the differences between Hula (Dance) and Oli (Chant) and the requirements for Hawaiian Hula (which serves as a spiritual journey, as a connection to the environment and as a portal) to also have Oli as a part of it, as the Oli drives the Hula (unlike other Polynesian cultures, whose dances do not necessarily require of words or phrases). We got stories about the catching and the usage of birds in the old tradition, as birds were important sources of food, feathers for the capes of the Kings, tools and for religion. We learnt the alphabet and the pronunciation of the Hawaiian native language and felt like first graders in French classes or so as we repeated after the teacher the individual vowels, consonants and the possible combinations – there are in fact not so many, but they always repeat one after another to form sometimes incredibly long and complicated words, especially if you add the okina (‘ as in Hawai’i), a glottal stop which should be taken very seriously as this forms part of good spirit when the pauses are made correctly and the following letters emphasized well, and the macron (- over a word) to lengthen it a little bit – forgetting one or the other may render the word into a completely different meaning, so one has to be careful! Before 1820, there was no written Hawaiian (like Schwiizerdütsch before SMS and email), and all traditions, cultural aspects and beliefs had to be transported purely orally.
The connection of the Hawaiian language, the cultural places, Hula and Oli are nicely combined even for us outsiders, as meaning can only be created through experience (Oli) and meaning is transported and passed on through interpretation (like in the Hula as an expression of it). So our part of interpretation is a key part in the overall experience and creation of meaning, which I think is not to be underestimated when interpreting in such a diverse place as Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.

I hope I am not boring you with all of this, it may open up a facet of insight not readily available for the outsider, and it also helps me get my mind clearer.

We also got the Hawaiian names and places of historic meanings, especially around the crater rim, as we should be using or alluding to them whenever possible when in interpretation with visitors. Especially particular was the presentation of the Ethnobotanist to explain traditional hawaiian use of native plants, Kapa tools (for cloth making of bast) and design. This really felt like a Potions lesson in Harry Potter’s Hogwarts school. We also got extensive information about the Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail project, a part of the overall National Historic Trails registers project. At that point we did get a little distracted as we were approaching 3 pm and the sky was covering a little bit in clouds – the transit of Venus, a really rare event and only the 7th observed by mankind since its first discovery, had started around noon time and we should be getting a telescope with corresponding equipment here at our military camp education room. However, the weather over at Jaggar museum seemed to be better, so many of us headed over to get a real glimpse of the event there, along with many visitors. We also witnessed a proper double rainbow entering right into the crater of Halema’uma’u, like it was directly connected to Pele Herself.

A mixed crowed gathered at the Military Camp’s largest presentation room inside HAVO this morning for the first day of a series of trainings in a two-week sequence. Today, we had two main topics

1) The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. I was aware of the “Northwestern Hawai’ian Islands” within the Archipelago (reaching as far out as Midway, at which point their orientation changes a little due to plate tectonic changes and move more northerly towards Russia as the Emperor Seamounts, as they have eroded already below sea level)., but I was unaware that they have such a realm of cultural and biological importance that they are now fully protected, off-limits really to everyone without a permit, and that the refuge is really really big – larger than 46 of the United States combined. Don’t worry about the name, it is really hard to pronounce but in the end you’ll get there. At least that’s what I am telling myself, as I may have to do that every once in a while, although they are really a different agency and people coming here to the park may not necessarily make a connection to the outer islands. Very useful and interesting information, though, and certainly high on a wish list of “things to visit that are off-limits”.

2) Volcanology. Obiously, Kilauea as well as the rest of the Big Island’s mountains are volcanoes. In fact, Kilauea is considered the most active volcano on earth (at least by the Americans), and the two other main Big Island’s volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, considered the world’s tallest. Now that does not mean they are the world’s highest (in terms of pure elevation, that will be Mount Everest). But this is comparing a small child standing on a large barstool being higher than its father besides. In fact, the base of the Mauna Kea is so far below sea level that it is indeed a massive structure compared to Mount Everest, which is much steeper (and therefore much less voluminous) and has a base which starts much higher up – probably in the mid 10’000s of feet or so. As a side note to those like me used rather to SI units than imperials, there are actually a bunch of people up here who calculate in meters and stuff – it’s the USGS volcano observatory people and the science staff that are really good at this, and they also gave an active and memorable lecture out in the field. It was very interesting to review the hotspot / plate tectonics connection and discuss something that I reviewed from a famous paper back at my ETH days, looking at the relative motion of the Emperor Seamount chain and the Hawai’ian Islands (including underwater volcano Loihi who will probably not form a new Hawai’ian island some 700’000 years into the future), e.g. Ritsema and Allen (2003): The elusive mantle plume. And: Davies (1992): On the emergence of plate tectonics.
We were outside for some time looking at pumice and Pele’s Hair and other eruptive material. Kilauea is effusive (Lava) for only some 40% of its time and explosive (pumice, tephra, bombs etc.) for some 60% of it, but some other geologists and myself we discussed whether it is really 60% or rather 1% or 0.1% and then quiet (neither lava nor eruption) for the rest of the time, which probably would make sense also.
The HAVO’s best volcanic ejecta outcrop to prove how explosive (in Hawai’ian volcano standards at least) Kilauea really can be is located right next to their main research building inside the crater. Yup, most of HAVO is actually located INSIDE the (outer) crater, while Halema’uma’u and the lava lake are located beyond the inner, lower and partially collapsed crater rim. So when people find out that they are approaching an active volcano when visiting the Jaggar Museum and Volcano Observatory, you need to tell them that they have been INSIDE the volcano as soon as they had entered through the main gate…

You get up early on Sundays – to go to mass, of course! We, the two volunteer interpreters currently at the bunk house here at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, were invited by one of our park rangers, Dino, to join mass at the Volcano New Hope Church. It was a lot of cheering and singing and a long sermon, too. Afterwards there is food and drinks – everyone brings a dish and we were really friendly greeted and hosted by everyone, so it was already after midday when we returned. But not before we had made a stop at the end of a side road of Volcano Village leading to the Pu’u Maka’ala Nature Reserve Area, a part of the Volcanoes National Park that cares for rare endemic plants that are threatened and challenged by invasive species.

Dino is a specialist in botany and invasive species, and really very knowledgeable about the problems and the restoration possibilities of the endemic Hawai’ian plants, and he new about this place where currently the rare endemic, huge Akala is in full fruit: The Hawai’ian raspberry or Rubus hawaiiensis. Right next to it, the almost extinct Oha Way is also blooming, Clermontia lindseyana. This plant has problem fewer than 1000 individuals left and occurs mostly here on the slopes of the volcanoes. It has special adaptations so it will be pollenated by an endemic honeycreeper bird.

I learnt a lot this sunday and really enjoyed the time out in the woods with Dino who showed us variety and species that we will need to be able to identify and tell about if we encounter them during one of our Ranger led activities but that are also really important to know about.

Come to that, we did that all in a little, manual Citroën 2CV that Dino drives every day, although it hardly makes it up the mountain with three men and a heavy back pack seated in it!

June 1 is start of hurricane season, the beginning of summer for many people here in the US, and also the start of my term as International Volunteer at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. So I left the luxury of my Kona hotel early and did the 2.5 hours drive up to Volcano with a view sightseeing stops in between.

I was warmly greeted at the park and could drop my luggage in the Interpreter’s house with no problem, but then had to hang out for 6 hours at Hilo Airport to wait for Dave, another volunteer who has served already 11’000 hours in the NPS. He would pick me and two others up. Rephrase, one other, because there was a bit of confusion with the pick up dates and who would be coming when. So the other volunteer from Moldova and me were taken to Safeways for shopping and then back up to the house to get settled in. So we are slowly discovering how everything works and will be visiting the park’s main center today for the first real time to meet the other colleagues and tag along a little bit.

This is, in fact, my last day before starting my term at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. I was still so tired and sore after the two-tank dusk/night dive and the Dolphin snorkel that I got up late and some ancillaries done – buy a few things I need up at HAVO, get my hair cut, clean out the underwater casing for the camera, let it dry and put it back into the boxes etc.

Then took the time to stroll down along Ali’i Drive in Kona and visited the Lava Light Galleries – I had seen a photograph of the Kilauea volcano earlier at the Humpy’s Bar & Restaurant, and in fact it was also the photographer I was recommended to visit during my trip with Blue Wilderness Divers. An interesting guy and really good talking to him – it just confirmed to me, however, that it is not necessarily the picture speaking for itself that makes it interesting, but the background story that the photographer can tell how it came together. People usually buy (I assume – as I don’t buy but shoot myself) pictures because they like it, because they speak for themselves. But oftentimes the really interesting pictures are overlooked because you just cannot appreciate how difficult and professional high-level they were to get, because you don’t see it in the picture. These circumstances made for an interesting conversation, also about places that I had visited, e.g. Yosemite, where one of his best pictures including the story were shot probably just days before I was there, the wave in Arizona, see earlier (that we both haven’t covered yet and where he agreed that a lottery system is a strange system for a “free land”), and ultimately the lava flow and ocean entry of Kilauea in 2008, where I actually think I got one picture (the one with the lightning, see here) that he didn’t get, although he has many incredible shots and some I wouldn’t even dare taking (like one where he swims in the surf up to the lava ocean entry to get both the wave and the lava…).

So I was hanging out a little between the tourists and the locals, won a bar quiz price (“what is Big Ben?” was the question) and headed back to the Hotel to get packed up for an early start tomorrow towards the park. Work’s waitin’!