Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Checked out of my hostel and headed west. Drove over the middle of the island to Kona. The weather was horrible for the east side of the drive and then BOOM - sun. Weather in Kona was much much nicer. Headed out for my Mauna Kea tour at 2pm, I was the first pickup so I got SHOTGUN! Our next pickup was at the airport like 25-30 mins away so my tour guide and I totally bonded on the drive.
For those of you who don't know:
Mauna Kea (English pronunciation: /ˌmɔːnə ˈkeɪ.ə/ or /ˌmaʊnə ˈkeɪ.ə/, Hawaiian: [ˈmɔunə ˈkɛjə]) is a volcano on the island of Hawaii. Standing 4,205 m (13,796 ft) above sea level, its peak is the highest point in the state of Hawaii. However, much of the mountain is under water; when measured from its oceanic base, Mauna Kea is over 10,000 m (33,000 ft) tall—significantly taller than Mount Everest. Mauna Kea is about a million years old, and has thus passed the most active shield stage of life hundreds of thousands of years ago. In its current post-shield state, its lava is more viscous, resulting in a steeper profile. Late volcanism has also given it a much rougher appearance than its neighboring volcanoes; contributing factors include the construction of cinder cones, the decentralization of its rift zones, the glaciation on its peak, and the weathering effects of the prevailing trade winds. Mauna Kea last erupted 4,000 to 6,000 years ago.
In Hawaiian mythology, the peaks of the island of Hawaii are sacred, and Mauna Kea is the most sacred of all. An ancient law allowed only high-ranking tribal chiefs to visit its peak. Ancient Hawaiians living on the slopes of Mauna Kea relied on its extensive forests for food, and quarried the dense volcano-glacial basalts on its flanks for tool production. When Europeans arrived in the late 18th century, settlers introduced cattle, sheep and game animals, many of which became feral and began to damage the mountain's ecology. Mauna Kea can be ecologically divided into three sections: an alpine climate at its summit, a Sophora chrysophylla-Myoporum sandwicense (or māmane-naio) forest on its flanks, and an Acacia koa-Metrosideros polymorpha (or koa-ʻōhiʻa) forest, now mostly cleared by the former sugar industry, at its base. In recent years, concern over the vulnerability of the native species has led to court cases that have forced the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources to eradicate all feral species on the mountain.
With its high altitude, dry environment, and stable airflow, Mauna Kea's summit is one of the best sites in the world for astronomical observation, and one of the most controversial. Since the creation of an access road in 1964, thirteen telescopes funded by eleven countries have been constructed at the summit. The Mauna Kea Observatories are used for scientific research across theelectromagnetic spectrum from visible light to radio, and comprise the largest such facility in the world. Their construction on a "sacred landscape"[4], replete with endangered species, ongoing cultural practices, and viewplanes used in the traditional Hawaiian measurement of time, continues to be a topic of intense debate and protest. Studies are underway to determine their effect on the summit ecology, particularly on the rare Wēkiu bug.
Don't say I never taught you anything...
So we stipped at the visitors center to eat and get used to a bit of altitude, then we headed up, checked out the observatories a but then hit the summit for sunset AND moonrise.
It was COLD... Well it was about 0 or -2ish.. The sunset was beautiful. We took tons of pics and then headed back down to near the visitor's center where the guides set up a couple of telescopes and we checked out some constellations and had hot chocolate.. It was pretty neat. I got home around 11. It was a long tour.
- comments