Volcano Road Trip

While in Hawaii we did a road trip down to the Volcano so that we could hike out and see the lava flowing into the ocean in the dark.  Since it is a 2+ hour drive from Kona, we booked rooms at the Volcano House, the historic hotel in the Volcanoes National Park.

When we got to the park, we did some site seeing - steam vents, Jagger Museum and the Thurston lava tube.  

Then we checked into our hotel and had some lunch before having a quick rest before our hike.

Volcano House - our rooms were far left on the ground floor

Our view from our room

Snack time on the lanai!

The hike to reach the lava was 4.25 miles one way.  But because we had to park so far away, it was about a 10 mile round trip hike.

We started at about 5:30 pm and hike a 16 minute mile on the way in.   We did about a 17 mile on the way out....we decided to take it easy.

Most of the hike was down a gravel road.  It was pretty flat and easy but we made it challenging by keeping our speed up.

We got there before it got dark.  So we checked it out and sat down to have sandwiches while we waited for it to get dark.

We were so close that you could feel the heat and the steam.

Picnic time!

We stayed until it was completely dark and checked it out some more and then hiked out.  We had headlamps with us so we could see on our way out.  It was one of the most incredible sites I have ever seen!

This was the view the next morning from the Volcano House.  It looked right out into the crater.  We had a big breakfast and then headed to Hilo where we visited the Tsunami Museum.  We were all fascinated by all that we had learned!