Recently, I trekked around Kilauea – through lava landscapes where the earth opens up like a crystal ball and we can peer into the past and future of Hawai`i.
My first trip descended Hilina Pali, the long slope that stretches towards Ka`u and faces the windy ocean, following the melted wax of new lava dribbles from the mountain to the sea. Near the bottom, the path passes dry brush and a few caves until it reaches Ka`aha, the small bay near the foot of Pu`u Kapukapu.
I came to swim in the isolated waters, which were rough and blue in the lava desert sun. After being tossed around the ocean and blown by the wind, I headed back toward Hilina Pali, tired from the long hike and exposed landscape. Suddenly, however, I found shelter and calmness in the rifted expanse of lava. I came upon a crack that was only three feet wide with a narrow and very dark pool piercing 20 feet deep. Climbing down into it, the sounds of the ocean dulled and the wind stopped. I sank in perfect stillness into the cold water darkness with my hair floating up to the thin line of light and my fingers brushing past both sides of the lava walls. A few miles away from this spot, lava seethed underneath and above the thin crust. Here, it was cold, peaceful, and still inside the earth, enclosed by darkness. Some water droplets stay trapped underground for millions of years and I shared a few moments of that existence without sound, light, or change. Then, I followed my exhale bubbles frantically back to the earth’s surface, to the light and nearby crashing ocean.
A few miles north, past Halape, I traveled to another tiny landmark on the vast coast. The hike to Keauhou is a long walk through the black desert, leading to a lava rimmed beach. There, a few dwarf coconuts overlook a luminous bay – a small spot of life that seems to smile in health alone and rarely seen. Even on a cloudy day, the small bay glows fluorescent and strange as if lit from below. A lush underwater field of coral flourishes, more abundant and colorful than any other place I have ever seen. In the sunlight, the refracted light pulses and plays upon the bright reef. There, fish flit excitedly between coral clusters like the i`iwi and `apapane chasing each other through branches of the `ohi`a that overlook Keauhou on the slopes of the pali.
Ascending back towards the start of the hike, I walked past the fingers of fresh lava rivers and ascended Hilina Pali. As I rose, I noticed the `ohi`a begin to thicken, their roots testing the new lava ground, tip-toeing between the ferns in the swirls of lava. Perhaps the hardened eddies and whirls in the pahoehoe were once molten and hidden for millions of years, but for the next million years will be hard, black, cold and silent slowly eroding and sifting back down into the sea.
After the hike, in a cold night full of clouds, I returned to Halema`uma`u crater, where a boil has opened up. The lava-filled mouth slowly released a deep red breath rising to the white moon. While the Ka`aha crevice pool allowed me to peek into a water-filled earth, this opening revealed a deeper secret – the immense boiling sea of magma that we float upon.
The recently opened crater looked so ancient, as if it had been smoking in the night since the world began, yet the land here constantly transforms. We can imagine or speculate as to how the world was shaped by continents shifting, sinking, and rising, cut by rivers and seas. But in our life spans, it is so rare to actually see the land being built, the lava rivers pouring out, cones, craters, and rifts appearing so suddenly in the landscape. Here in Hawai`i, we are given the chance to view great changes that would elsewhere be invisible, gradual, and take thousands of lifetimes to occur.
Hawai`i has often been called a microcosm in the biological sense, but in Kilauea, it is a microcosm of time, with vast geological events taking place in a few decades, or even moments. Here, there is a sense of power and chaos, where nature does not wait, but can sneak quickly and surprise – moving huge tracts of land and spreading poisonous fumes that darken the sky for hundreds of miles. In my lifetime, perhaps, the tiny bays of Keauhou and Ka`aha may be gone, under lava or sunken in an earthquake as was most of Halape, a couple decades ago. While these areas in Kilauea seem still and timeless, we may be only offered a short window to view them. What other hidden and strange formations or vibrant oases of life have been covered up, or will appear in time?
Above Halema`uma`u crater, I stared into the source of all this uncertainty and potential. Under the moon and the cool wind, Kilauea offered a mysterious glimpse of the hidden undersurface world, which steamed and shone in the night.
— Emma Yuen
Volume 18, Number 12 June 2008
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