Sun and Lava – this describes the trail quite well, as there ain’t much more to see. Perhaps I misjudge the beauty and power of Mauna Loa at the moment because I feel so miserable, but the entire trail was just lava in all its forms – ropy Pahoehoe falling apart as you step on it, jagged small pieces of A’a moving all the time as you step on it (and you sure don’t want to slip and fall there), all sorts of ash and small pieces of fallout that makes you sink in – in fact, it wasn’t a trail at all. It was rather “trail markings and you make up the trail yourself as you go along”, with Ahu rock piles (or cairns) on the way. A word of caution on the Ahus, by the way: Neither make them yourself (in Hawai’i, it is not considered a good blessing for yourself) nor destroy them. They serve as trail markings in a land of lava where no other orientation points are around, and it also brings huge difficulty to the volcanologists as they try to date and record lava rocks that have been “anthropogetically moved”.

I have taken what is considered the “easy route” up to Mauna Loa – drive to the Mauna Loa Observatory and hike the remaining 2500 feet or so to the summit. But pardon me, it is still a 13600 ft / 4167 m high mountain – in fact, my first 4000+ m ASL mountain that I “climbed”, although not from the bottom, of course. It took me six hours round trip, my backpack was too heavy, I was relatively short on time because I had to return the rental car today (yup, days off over, back to work!) and needed help doing so, which meant doing the trip to Hilo twice. Walking over uncharted lava seems to activate completely different parts of your feet – I have never had blisters in these hiking boots of mine, and boy do I have blisters in areas I would not have imagined one could develop such blisters. I guess I will have to walk awkwardly for a little why and stay out of the water. But I hope soon the pain is forgotten and the memories of having climbed Mauna Loa will persist. Find the photo gallery below.

ADDENDUM: After reading some journals with other people’s experience of hiking Mauna Loa, like this one, it seems I didn’t fare too bad after all?!