Volcanoes National Park, Part I - Kīlauea Iki Trail

All the books and articles I read said that if you go to Volcanoes National Park, you must hike the Kilauea Iki Trail.  It's a day hike approximately 4 miles long that includes a steep descent and ascent. We did it and it was one of the most memorable days of our entire trip.

From trail head in the first photo, you can see that the crater is still steaming.  There are numerous steam vents in the caldera and my understanding is that they sometimes cause sudden explosions. From the trail head at the top, we looked down at the entire lava lake that we would be hiking through. It took all of us several minutes to realize that there were people, the size of ants, down in the lava lake.

We descended through lush rainforest and marveled at the plant life.  This is one of the incredible things about Hawaii - you can't get over the plants.  At some point we finally made it to the floor of the lava lake and what an amazing change in scenery it was.  The technicolor green was replaced by thick, cakey plates of monochromatic black lava.  We were walking on a dried lava lake.  Between the cracked dried lava, plants and flowers sprung.  The trail was marked by lava rock cairns but we ventured off trail looking at steaming vents and lava tubes.  The four of us couldn't stop examining everything.  We joked that this was probably like walking on the moon or Mars.

After hiking over the entire caldera and before the ascent, we stopped for a quick charcuterie picnic for the boys.  The ascent back up is steep.  The trail is just a series of switchbacks that take you up and up.  The view and the weather were amazing and although two of us were bleeding here and there from the hike, but we all felt great afterwards.