Located on the Southeast side of the Big Island, Volcano National Park is one of the many must see attractions in Hawaii. It’s a 2 hour drive from the Kona Airport, about 20 miles from Hilo. We decided to rent an AirBNB right next to the park for our 3 day hiking adventure. As luck would have it, we came just a few days after a recent eruption episode, and it was likely another eruption would happen over the next week.
The park is home to 2 volcanoes, Kilauea being one of the most active on earth, and Mauna Loa being the largest active volcano on earth.
You need either a car or go on a tour bus to access the park, even if you plan to do some serious hiking. We took the western loop drive to see the rim of Kilauaha. It’s a few miles around the rim and the road stops about a mile from the fuming vents that are the site of the recent eruption. A few years ago there was a road that circled the entire Kilauea rim. But a major collapse of the crater destroyed the road, and you can no longer drive or hike the entire rim. The views are breathtaking, and a very friendly park ranger gave us some nice info and history about Kilauea and the park.
Access to the larger volcano that sits about 13,000” feet is more difficult. There is a hiking trail to a lookout point and a scientific monitoring station. You can also hike close to the summit, but it is a 10+ mile high altitude rugged hike. Not an option for most.
Our Second stop in Volcano Nation Park was the large crater just downhill from the main Kilana crater, it’s the only crater you hike into, and one of the most impressive hikes I have ever taken. You park your car at the rim of the crater and the hike down a step jungle filled set of steps to the crater floor. Once on the crater floor you can then hike all the way across to a set of caves and the other rock formation. The entire hike is about 3-4 miles round trip.
The next stop on our drive was the lava tube. Parking at the lava tub can be tricky, and you sometimes have to california style park it, that is drive around or throw the blinkers on and wait for someone to leave. This is a short hike that takes you to the entrance of a cave-like structure. It’s a pretty cool stop, but only takes about 30 min to see the entire structure.
Just below the lava tube is crater row, where you can drive by a set of smaller craters, many about 20. It’s a few miles of craters and jungle like terrain before you hit the big road and expansive view of the lava fields.
The drive down to the sea through Volcano National Park is about 20 miles each way. You start off in the forest that surrounds the entrance to the park, but after a few miles it gives way to massive open lava fields and breathtaking views of the ocean from miles away. Once you get down to the coast you can drive along for about a mile, and get right next to the cliffs that surround the ocean.
We never got to see the eruption, at least in person. I checked the live web cam at least a few times a day the entire time we were on the Big Island. It finally started to bubble and smoke and started to fountain around 3:00 the last day we were there. It was officially full fountain around 4:40, our flight left at 8:00, and we were 2 hours by car from the action. So we got to watch the eruptions on YouTube in the airport. Hopefully someday we can see it.