Big Island

During the short vacation to Hawaii, we went to the Big Island, Hawaii, for some relaxing, scuba diving, and hiking. Jeremy's sole purpose in going was to see Lava.
He has been to the Big Island before, but didn't get to go to Volcanoes National Park. About 6 days before he left, the lava stopped flowing into the ocean, but could still be seen far up the mountain at about the 800-1100 ft. elevation level. Jeremy hiked 2 miles (one-way) up to where the lava was flowing to see it himself. The hike back, in the dark, was the "fun" part. One neat thing about lava that he didn't know is even when the lava is bright orange and flows the fastest, it is still very hard. He tested this theory by throwing rocks into the freshest batch, and they bounced right off!

		View of a small flow with some daylight left.

		Lava's Tongue - So named because it looks like...you guessed it a tongue.

		This was the beginning flow for the next series of pictures.

		I shot this series to show the way that lava comes out and cools. The dark orange is lava that is already starting to cool.
		The photo on the left shows the cooling and hardening of the lava on top of the flow, but it still flows underneath it. When the lava was coming out, it sounded like bricks being rubbed together.
		It took about 3-5 minutes for the lava to build up to the lava that is shown on the right.

		As the lava flowed it would pool up and when there was enough pressure in the cooling "puddle," it would give way and kind of "snake" its way out. To give you a reference, Jeremy was about 6 feet away as he took this and the next three photos.


		The last shot before darkness fell. The top of the mountain in the background is about 1/2 mile away.

		Jeremy also stopped to enjoy the beach where the surf was strong, the sun was hot and the ocean was a beautiful deep blue.





		It doesn't matter which island you go to in Hawaii if you want to see waterfalls.



		This waterfall stretches almost 100 feet to the bottom.





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