Friday, January 19
This was our last full day on the Big Island. I was still feeling disappointed that we hadn’t taken the all-day trail to the volcano on Wednesday, and I wanted to do something a little off the beaten track. One of the outings described in our guidebook was a 2.5-mile hike over lava fields to a mile-long lava tube. It was off the Saddle Road, which is a “nonstandard” road that crosses the Big Island.
The Saddle Road was originally a one-lane road. In recent years, asphalt has been laid on either side of the original lane, so it’s now as wide as a two-lane road, and marked as a two-lane road, but it doesn’t drive like one because it isn’t banked and is lacking other engineering benefits. I’d been told that the Saddle Road might be off limits to rental cars. But I heard from someone during the week that there is a trick to driving it. You simply drive in the center of the road – on the original one lane – until you are about to go over a hill or around a corner. Then you move over, in case there’s a car coming from the opposite direction.
We decided to do the hike off the Saddle Road. I was the driver for the entire week in Hawaii, but I was a little leery of taking this road. The distance from the turnoff to the trailhead was about 25 miles. I must have driven about 40 mph maximum. It felt odd to be driving a road without engineering accoutrements.
The trailhead was hard to find. There was an old gravel road, but it was faint, along the side of the highway and there was a big pile of lava rocks across it about 50 feet in. It was clear that the rocks had been bulldozed into place so that vehicles wouldn’t go any further.
As we parked the car off the highway, I was nervous. The reference book we were using commented several times that auto theft was a problem in Hawaii, and that we shouldn’t leave our car unattended. Yet here we were, in a deserted area, with no other cars parked nearby, planning on spending three or four hours in the wilderness. I expressed my nervousness to Art. He didn’t share it. I could see that this adventure might come close to making up for the volcano hike we didn’t take.
We put on our hiking boots and our daypacks, with three liters of water, and lunch, and locked everything else in the trunk. Fat chance, I thought, that putting the stuff in the trunk would help. If vandals came along, a trunk latch wouldn’t stop them. Oh, well, I thought, we have insurance. I looked at the sky. It was clear and blue, and the sun was right up there, at noon, blazing away. I looked across the lava fields towards our destination two and a half miles away. There was nothing out there but lava and a few scrub trees. I felt vulnerable and exposed on this hike. There was no one there, no public facilities, no park rangers. Just us and the sun and the lava.
We headed for the lava road block. It was eight to ten feet high. Art, more nimble than I over rocks, had little difficulty. He waited patiently. Once on the other side, we could see another blockage a couple of hundred feet ahead. Larger. Bigger chunks of lava. Twenty to thirty feet high. This one was a tougher climb, even for Art. As he picked his way cautiously up the pile, rocks slid, and dust rose around him. I wondered whether we should just go back. But then I remembered, this is the risky day. I owe Art one day off the beaten path. I started up the rock pile. I deliberately avoided looking at the dropoff at the side of the road. I was profoundly grateful for two trekking poles, sturdy shoes and some degree of fitness. I scrabbled and crawled up the pile and down the other side.
Ahead of us was a metal gate, just like the guidebook had indicated. We pushed through and headed down the trail, which was over partially broken-down lava. There was not a sound except birds, and not another soul in sight.
With two poles each, we were able to make our way without much difficulty. I looked back now and then until the highway and the gate disappeared. The silence was unnerving to me. Art was completely comfortable.
It took an hour and a half to travel the two and a half miles, including several pauses for water and a brief stop for lunch. Periodically we saw blue ribbons strung on branches, but we didn’t know what they were used for. I started to worry that we would run out of water and die there. I was afraid I would fall and sprain my ankle. I wondered whether Art would carry me out – no small feat, chunky as I am – or go for help and leave me. I didn’t ask. I knew he would laugh.
We passed scattered bones. I wondered what kind of animal had bones like that, and what had happened to it. Art said that, from the size of the bones, most likely the animal was a wild donkey. I was out of my comfort zone on this walk with the isolation, but Art was fine – he likes to hunt and is accustomed to solitude outdoors. I suspect he could live in the woods and survive and maybe even enjoy it.
We had read that we might encounter wild pigs. Art didn’t tell me until later, but the shaded area where we had stopped for lunch was a place where he thought it likely that we would encounter an animal. I’m glad he didn’t tell me until later.
When we got to the area where the lava tube was supposed to be, we had to look carefully to find it, as the opening faced away from the trail. The roof of the lava tube had collapsed at this particular place, so access was possible to the tube going in both directions. At the entrance, we found a Department of Interior sign. It said access to the cave was unauthorized without a permit. That sign must have been erected fairly recently, because our reference book made no mention of it. I was actually a little relieved that we wouldn’t be going in.
However, no sign was going to stop Art. He spent 20 minutes or so exploring the first hundred feet of the tube. He saw an animal nesting area. Art suspected wild dogs or feral cats. In that area were more bones, probably of an animal that had been dragged there. Art saw a pig’s jawbone.
He took the camera and got a few shots in the darkness of the tube, which was illuminated just momentarily by the flash. The lava tube appeared actually to be two, where one later flow had melted over the older tube. There was a definite shelf of the two different sizes. It appeared that the cave-ins of the roof were done when the electric company set the power pole lines above the ground and most likely had to blast to set them. Unbeknowst to us until we got the pictures back, the 30-foot room Art found inside contained luminous rocks. Art collects small stones from each place we visit, so he came out of the tube with a piece of the collapsed roof.
I sat on rocks and waited. Now that we were halfway through this hike, I was proud of my willingness to stretch myself. I looked at the muscles in my legs, at the dust on my shoes and the trekking poles resting nearby. I felt good.
The return hike seemed shorter, as is usually the case when we’re walking back over familiar trail. Art was using his GPS to calculate our distance, and it was then that he figured out the purpose for the blue ribbons along the trail. They were mile markers.
The sun was hot and we were drinking a lot of water, more than we had on any other day of our trip. Art told me later that on the way back he was afraid we would run out of water. I’m glad he didn’t tell me at the time.
On this day, I was surprised again at how little fatigue I felt. As we climbed the final rise to the metal gate, I still had plenty of energy. Back over the two rock piles. I could see the rental car ahead, unstolen. And, as it turned out, unvandalized. I was relieved. Art was unsurprised.
The Saddle Road was no problem heading home. I barreled along, full of confidence that I could handle it. I might have even been speeding!
There’s an Army training base on the Saddle Road, and on the way back we saw mobile units preparing for their night maneuvers. I thought that this godforsaken place was the perfect location for desert training.
We had an odd dinner. Everything in the refrigerator had to go. Nothing matched. Tasted good anyway, after our sojourn into the wilderness.
Saturday, February 20
Going-home day. We were packed and out of the condo by 10 and headed for the airport. I had a lurking fear that the Budget Rental Car agency would be able to tell that we had been on some no-no roads, and that we’d be charged a damage fee. We lucked out. The drop off was quick and uneventful.
Once our Aloha Airlines flight landed in Honolulu, we were to have a nine-hour layover. We’d planned on a trip to Pearl Harbor and maybe Waikiki to pass the time. Our luggage had been checked clear through to Seattle. We found a locker and stowed our daypacks, then went to check in for our evening flight to save us time later.
We asked the man at the check-in counter where we could catch public transportation from the airport to Pearl Harbor. He gave us directions but said, “Pearl Harbor closes at 3. It’s 2 now. You’ll be rushed.” Then he added, “We have a earlier flight leaving for Seattle in about 45 minutes. Would you like seats on that?” Pretty ironic, since I’d tried before we left Seattle to get on this earlier flight and had been told no, there was no room. (There probably wasn’t at the price we were paying for our tickets!) I commented on this to the ticket agent. He said that there were a number of Northwest employees who wanted to go back to the mainland later in the day, and that if we took the earlier flight there would be room for them. So we lucked out. Instead of a red-eye flight, we arrived in Sea-Tac at 9:30 pm. One of our luggage pieces arrived with us. Art picked up the other one the next day.
AFTERWARD
In spite of “intestinal disturbance” we had a good, sunny, warm, interesting week on the Big Island. There’s enough to do there, even for geezers (that’s Art’s input - I would have said non sun- or water-worshippers). It was very hard to come back to the Seattle darkness. I could see a week every year in the tropics in January.
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