How high is high enough? Or, ain't no mountain high enough!

So, we came to the last day in Hawai'i.  A full 3 weeks there, but insufficient time in so many ways.  Of one thing we are greatly pleased:  we never felt compulsion to jam every waking minute with an active experience.  Sometimes sitting and navel-gazing, or head swiveling and taking in the vision, were the best activities because they made the time sloooooooooow way down.

This last day was, as I intimated, the capstone planned by MJ.  A lazy morning with our usual Mountain Thunder Kona Coffee and muffins, and a soft morning by the resort pool listening to the wind and surf and watching the young Japanese tourists at their "sex pray" in the water.  Then.  We took the sunset trip to the top of Mauna Kea.

Our purveyor was Mauna Kea Summit Adventures, and our host was Chris, a young Arizonan who has lived in Hawai'i for a long time.  He has a degree in geology and is an amateur astronomer and ethnologist.  Encyclopedic, to put it gently.

Mauna Kea rises to 13,796 feet.  From its base, considerably below sea level in a basin it has created by its own mass, it is the tallest mountain in the world, thousands of feet taller than Mt. Everest.  It also boasts the clear and unobstructed air required for the world's most sophisticated astronomical observatories, and they are there, staffed by multiple countries and academic institutions.  Mauna Loa, which it abuts, it the worlds largest! mountain.  Both, by the way, are still classified as active volcanoes.  Although Mauna Kea hasn't erupted for several thousand years, Mauna Loa erupted as recently as 1984 and the lava flows threatened to inundate Hilo.

We joined the group at Anaehoomalu (better known now as the Waikoloa Beach resort), took the road up through the town of Waikoloa, turned toward Waimea, and then turned right on the saddle road to Hilo.  From the coast to the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the climb is 6,600 feet, and the road passes from coastal desert through giant lava flows, into increasingly moist and vegetated (but still spooky) country.  We saw wild turkeys, goats, and donkeys.  At the saddle, there is an abrupt turn up the slope of Mauna Kea, at an average grade of 17%.  Rather quickly one passes into clouds and reaches the Mauna Kea Visitor Center (Onizuka Center for International Astronomy) at 9,200+ feet, where changes from clouds to sunshine and back again require only a few seconds.

The Onizuka Visitor Center has picnic areas, lodging for astronomers who work at the top of the mountain, restrooms, and a gift shop.  There is a wonderful video of photography from the observatories.  This has a music soundtrack. But there is no dialogue, which acts to prompt many and various visitors to provide their own.  How does one say STFU in Japanese?  We ate a small meal at the Center whilst adjusting to the higher altitude.  From this point 4WD is required to reach the top, on a partially paved road which sometimes grades in excess of 20%.  The passage is other-planetary, or even like a red-brown moonscape, with lava stretching to the visible horizons and almost no vegetation.  Small and larger cinder cones poke up here and there, breaking up the otherwise fissured, gravelly, and very rough surface.  The road reaches the lower observatories just below the crest, and then loops above to top out just adjacent to the actual highest point.  The various observatories (famous, look them up) study our universe not only by light telescope, but also by infrared, radio, and every other possible spectrum.  During the brief period we were at the top, the temperature was somewhere around 25 degrees F.  One older fellow in our group had difficulty with the altitude and became quite confused, until we got lower.  We witnessed the sunset, and, moments later, a full moonrise from the opposite side.   All the while, from coast to pinnacle, our "naturalists" covered the natural and human histories of Mauna Kea and environs.

Mauna Loa from Mauna Kea

Full moonrise beyond Mauna Kea high point

After sunset, we descended the way we had come.  A little below the peak, on a steep slope above the road, Chris pointed to a sinuous track taking a vertical route down the lava.  A short quiz followed.  What caused it?  Guesses ranged from rockslide to downhill skiing after a recent snowfall.  The answer:  rollover by a Chevy Impala 2 weeks earlier, a 2WD rental vehicle forbidden to be on that road, left in neutral gear by a hypoxic "haole" who made a pit stop on the shoulder.  The car rolled many feet down the mountain and the guy's wife survived because she had the presence of mind to jump out as the car went over the edge of the road.  Hertz could not have been happy, and the guy's wife did not remain silent - I believe we can be sure of this.  BTW, "haole" is Hawai'ian for "dumb ass white guy."

Just below the visitor center we took a side road into a dark field for the "Star Program".  Chris presented an excellent overview of ancient Polynesian celestial navigation.  Two large telescopes were set up, and we reviewed certain prominent stars and constellations.  Among the latter was the Southern Cross, which was rising on the southern horizon and which most of us had never seen.  We then viewed, through the scopes, Jupiter and its moons; Saturn and its rings and moons; two star clusters not visible to the naked eye, the Beehive Cluster and the Queen's Jewels cluster; and the moon, blindingly bright.  (Added by MJ:  Are we the only ones who didn't know that the angle of Polaris above the horizon matches the latitude of the viewer's position?  Duh!  And cool!  No wonder it's useful for navigation.)

Then a slow, soporific ride back down the mountain to our vehicles on the coast, and a very good night's repose.

Next morning, coffee, leisurely trip to Kona International Airport, and the long flight home, ending where we started, at 1:30 am this past Saturday.  And already we are planning the next Hawai'ian adventure.  Can't wait.