Byline: Susanne Hopkins Los Angeles Daily News
KILAUEA, Hawaii -- It is night, and Mother Nature is at work on the Big Island. A neon stream of bright orange bisects the mountain to our left, traveling 7 miles to the Pacific Ocean, where the molten lava crashes into the sea in a fiery blaze. The resulting steam wafts south, stretching like black gauze across the pearly, full moon.
``You are watching the earth give birth - Mother Nature herself,'' says George Applegate, who has accompanied us on this tour to watch the Kilauea lava flow.
We (there are eight of us) stand awestruck at the sight. Above us, vast numbers of stars twinkle in the night sky; in front of us, great folds of cold lava glisten in the moonlight. And there is that boiling ribbon of orange.
``This is,'' says a fellow lava-watcher, ``the most surreal experience I have ever had.''
Amen, brother.
Watching the Kilauea lava flow is one of the most amazing experiences on the Big Island, one that is enjoyed by tourists and residents alike (the volcano is, in fact, the island's top tourist attraction). When darkness falls, folks drive out as far as they can on Chain of Craters Road leading to the flow, park their cars along the roadside and train binoculars and cameras on the orange sliver and the explosion of fire in the sea.
Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano - Earth's most active volcano - erupted a dozen years ago, yet the lava still flows. It has gobbled up housing tracts - about 200 structures to date - the village of Kalapana and 4 1/2 miles of this road on which we are standing.
It is a keen reminder that we mere mortals are not in charge here. But while Mother Nature taketh away, she also giveth. New black-sand beaches are being created as the hot lava meets the cold water and is pounded into granules.
``We are 500 acres larger now (since the lava began flowing),'' says Applegate, of the Hawaii Visitors Bureau, Big Island Chapter.
In other words, you may have seen Hawaii, the Big Island, but you won't have seen the new and bigger Big Island.
This 4,038-square-mile island - which easily could accommodate all the other Hawaiian islands and thus is nicknamed the Big Island - is indeed a place of wonders. It could take more than a week to see them all.
Here, you can sit on a sultry beach on a winter day and study the snow-capped Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa volcanoes. You can lose yourself in a rain forest, visit a macadamia nut farm or an orchid garden, tour one of America's three royal palaces, pluck a mango off a roadside tree or count rainbows in some of the island's hundreds of waterfalls. You can wonder at its numerous microclimates (everything from desert to rain forest) and see Mauna Loa, the world's most massive mountain - more than 100 times the breadth of Mount Rainier in Washington - and the second-highest mountain in the world (it rises only 13,677 feet above sea level but is rooted 18,000 feet below).
Want to see the highest mountain in the world? I know, you thought it was Mount Everest in the Himalayas; but really, it's on the Big Island. You just can't see it all. Mauna Kea is 13,796 feet above sea level, but 18,000 feet below.
You also can discover the world of the ancient Hawaiians in museums, temples and the Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, stroll the friendly town of Hilo with its several nurseries and gardens and boulevard of banyan trees planted by famous people, and see the southernmost village in America - sleepy little Naalehu. And you can go sport fishing, golfing, hiking, snorkeling, scuba diving, hunting and - believe it or not - skiing.
You also can move around here easily (only 133,000 people live on the island) and the residents are warm and welcoming.
So why isn't the Big Island the travelers' choice over, say, Oahu and Maui? Beats me. Oahu draws 4.7 million visitors per year, Maui nearly 2.3 million, while the Big Island attracts about 1.1 million. Maybe it's the lack of glitz and glamor,although it does have the chic town of Kailua-Kona and some lush, plush resorts such as the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel, the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and the new Sheraton hotel, The Orchid at Mauna Lani, formerly the Ritz-Carlton.
``We are not flashy, but we are real,'' says Applegate.
And in my two days here, I do indeed find slices of the real Hawaii:
* Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the southeastern coast of the island about 28 miles southwest of Hilo, with one entrance off Route 11: steaming bluffs, gigantic calderas (collapsed summits), lunarlike landscapes, yellow soil and lava-covered trees - this is a fantastical world.
``It looks like the devil's handiwork,'' says one man as we peer into the vast, barren fire pit called the Halema'uma'u Crater - a crater inside Kilauea.
Smells like it, too. The pungent aroma of sulfur wafts out of the steaming fissures in the crater, one of several in the 400-square-mile park that stretches from the sea to the summit of Mauna Loa.
Pele - the fire goddess who, according to legend, created the Hawaiian Islands by causing volcanic eruptions - is said to live here. As we are studying the massive hole, a group brings offerings to her.
They step to the edge of the crater and pull flowers, pineapple, grapes, poi and wine from their bags. These they will drop into the crater. It takes much to appease this fiery creature (gin will do nicely - it's her favorite drink) and you only bring things; you don't take. (It is considered bad luck to take home chunks of lava; each year, several packages of the basalt rock are returned to the Hawaii Visitors Bureau).
But there's more to see here than just the craters. There are hiking trails, a fern forest, campgrounds, petroglyphs and other wonders.
I walk through a rain-forest trail into the Thurston Lava Tube, a 400-foot-long tunnel where tiny ferns sprout out of the cold lava walls. It was created when the surface of a lava flow cooled and the molten lava flowed out, leaving the tube.
At the small Thomas A. Jagger Museum where volcanoes are explained via graphics and videos, I peer in wonder at the remains of a park ranger's uniform. In 1985, while taking an Italian tourist around the Kilauea lava flow, George Ulrich fell through a lava blister - a thin crust over molten lava. His pant-leg was burned away, his boot charred, his heat-resistant gloves stripped, his hatchet encrusted with lava. Pulled out by the tourist, he survived.
At the Kilauea Visitor Center, where information and small displays on volcanoes are featured, there's a visitor's register from 1894. ``I came, I saw, but I failed to conquer,'' wrote one.
* Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historic Park, off State Route 160 about 19 miles south of Kailua-Kona: About 400 years ago, this peaceful place by the sea welcomed those who needed a second chance. At this old Hawaiian place of refuge, people who broke the sacred laws (called ``kapu'') could come for absolution. Defeated warriors or those who refused to fight the frequent wars also were welcomed.
It was a sanctuary, and that sense of tranquility still pervades the area, which has been restored to its appearance in the 1700s. A docent gives a brief orientation talk in the small amphitheater, telling us about the days when it was forbidden for women to eat with men and a commoner could not let his shadow fall on the ruling chief's palace grounds nearby. Seasons for fishing, gathering wood and hunting animals were strictly observed, lest the gods become angry and let loose with volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, famine or earthquakes.
You can come here now and swim in the ocean, but I wander the grounds instead, viewing the thatched-roof examples of the ``ohi'a'' wood houses, the canoe built in the way of the ancient Hawaiians (koa wood with coconut-fiber lashings), ``heiau'' (temples) and a ``halau,'' an A-frame structure where ancient Hawaiians worked and stored items.
Visitors crack open coconuts that free-fall from the trees, and there are native Hawaiian plants in profusion. But perhaps the most fascinating link to the ancient Hawaiians is the original wall that separated the palace grounds from the sanctuary and which still stands. Built of black rock about 1550, it is a masterful accomplishment. No mortar holds this jigsaw-puzzle wall in place.
* Pu'u O'o Ranch Rainforest, off remote Saddle Road on the Kona side of the island: Early on a cool Monday morning, I am bouncing along in the back seat of a four-wheel-drive van navigating rough, roller coaster-like roads leading to one of Hawaii's best, but least-known, rain forests. We pass piles of red and black lava, buckwheat and mustard. This is a weird world where some lava wears white lichen, giving it a whiskered look; where koa trees and sword ferns grow out of the lava; Monterey pines flourish; and lava rock takes fantastical formations. And that's just going there.
``This rain forest is as fine an intact natural forest as we have,'' says Rob Pacheco, the guide for our five-person group, as he parks the van in a clearing bordered by rough lava rock called ``'a'a.'' The backdrop for this scene is the lush green of the forest that, Pacheco says, is full of native plants, birds and insects.
(``There's nothing in here that's going to bite you or attack you; but if anything gets on you, don't brush it off. Let me know; it could be something good,'' he says with all the relish of a true naturalist.)
Armed with walking sticks, we clamber over the lava rock to the entrance. Pacheco carved out these trails himself, keeping them narrow so as to cause a minimum of damage. He discovered the forest one day when he got lost on a hiking expedition. Now, the property owner allows him to bring visitors to the forest.
Everything here, Pacheco tells us, is native to Hawaii; some trees and shrubs are found nowhere else in the world. Rare birds like the ``I'iwi'' and the ``Akiapola'au'' wear vibrant colors and their calls are the only sound in this silent place.
The rain forest is growing on a 2,000-year-old lava flow. Huge koa trees dwarf a vast variety of ferns; it smells loamy here and in places, the earth is slippery muck. We use our walking staffs to raise the ferns and make our way on the trail. Sometimes, only our heads are visible in a shroud of green.
``The species in other rain forests are in the canopy,'' Pacheco says. ``In Hawaii, it's in the understory because there were no predators to send them high.''
* Hulihee Palace, Kona: Just across Alii Drive from restaurants and the lava-and-coral Mokuaikaua Church built in 1837 by the island's first Christians, is the humble royal abode called Hulihee Palace. It, too, is built of lava and coral, with koa and o'hia timbers, but it backs up to a sea wall (part of which was battered down in a storm a few weeks before my visit). From 1838 until 1916, it was the royal version of a beach house - and there is a covered verandah where the royals could sit and enjoy the lovely view of Niumalu Bay.
Now, it's a museum run by the Daughters of Hawaii. And, while the two-story, Georgian-style palace seems rather modest on the outside, there are real treasures inside. Fabulous hand-carved koa wood sideboards, inlaid wood tables and a giant lead-lined wooden trunk are among the sights - and most are original to the house, our guide says. The one sideboard took four years to create; the trunk, one of six, belonged to Queen Kapiolani, he tells us. He points to a photo of her. Attired in Victorian dress, she is quite large - more than 6 feet tall and 400 pounds, he notes.
Not, apparently, unusual for the day.
``The average Hawaiian was over 6 feet,'' he informs us.
So, her bed upstairs is 7 feet long and it's not a rope bed as was customary; instead, it's got wooden slats.
It becomes apparent as we tour the house that what we are seeing is a freeze-frame of a metamorphosis, when Hawaiians began shedding their old ways and adopting the dress and manner of the Victorians.
But it is places like this that guarantee the old Hawaii will never die.
INFOBOX
IF YOU GO
For more information on the Big Island, call 808-329-7787 (the Kona side) or 808-961-5797 (the Hilo side).
CAPTION(S):
Color Photo (5)
The Kilauea lava creates a boiling ribbon of orange as it flows into the ocean off the Big Island of Hawaii. By Mary Van de Ven / Big Island Hawaii Visitor's Bureau.
CAPTION: A paniolo (cowboy) rides at the 250-000-acre Parker Ranch on the Big Island, said to be the largest privately owned cattle ranch in the United States, below left. By Stanton Patty / Special to the Rocky Mountain News.
CAPTION: A Big Island sunset.
CAPTION: Tourists inspect the lava, which blocks a Big Island road. By Stanton Patty / Special to the Rocky Mountain News.
CAPTION: A beach along the Kona Coast. By Stanton Patty / Special to the Rocky Mountain News.
