WANT to be away from it all at an accessible place of beauty? No crowds? Wondrous views? Only a mild walk getting there -- with even that an attraction in itself? Two walks that
reveal Hawaii’s beautyI'll share two secrets with you.
Try a sunrise walk from Volcano House on the Big Island to the Steaming Bluffs lookout at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
I can come close to guaranteeing you privacy at the Steaming Bluffs at sunrise. In over 100 visits over 50 years I've met a grand total of about a dozen other walkers plus a friendly cat. You'll find more people at Punchbowl but only one-hundredth of the crowds that used to throng there when tour buses could drive right up to it.
Steaming Bluffs at dawn is something special. I start from Volcano House just before sunrise, wind through ohia trees, giant ferns and sometimes spider webs for half a mile. The spider webs can glisten in the dawn. The fern leaves may be just unfoiling.
On the last part of the walk moss-covered earth cracks vent warming steam (welcome in the cool morning), first on one side of the path, then on the other. Remember the National Park's Golden Rule, "Stay on the Paths," and there is no danger.
From the trail (which is at 4,000 feet elevation) you can see gigantic Mauna Loa Volcano straight ahead. If no clouds interfere, Mauna Kea is far off to the right. Both are over 13,000 feet high.
If your timing is right you will see the first sun rays catch the top of Mauna Loa, then march down its massive slope. They turn it from gray to clay red as they pass. The rays reach even to where you are, creating rainbows on the steam that almost always is carried out over the crater by the morning winds. In a few more moments the rays poke even into Kilauea Crater's inner firepit, Halemaumau. There the fire goddess Pele lives and occasionally puts on spectacular lava shows.
Even without an eruption the three-mile-wide main crater is awesome. Different shades of lava on its floor define past lava flows, the black ones being the most recent. Steam puffs up intermittently. You can return to Volcano House the way you came or take a slightly longer path via the smelly Sulphur Banks and National Park Headquarters.
On the Punchbowl path be sure to go the whole way. At the lookout, now reserved for pedestrians only, there are great views of Punchbowl Crater itself and its cemetery headstones, of the lush tropic mountains behind Honolulu and of the city.
There's too much of Honolulu to see in one glance -- some 20 miles worth. East Honolulu, Diamond Head, Waikiki and environs in one direction. Central and downtown Honolulu below. Off in the opposite distance are Honolulu International Airport, Pearl Harbor, Barbers Point and the Waianae Mountains. On my scale of 1 to 10 it rates higher than the skyscraper views of either New York City or Chicago. All are near 10 and, obviously, quite different.
THE National Cemetery had a real problem when autos and buses could circle the lookout. Traffic jammed. But the vistas at least were enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of persons each year. Many were visitors just off planes being kept busy while waiting for their hotel rooms to be ready.
Now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Buses have to stay on the cemetery's central loop. Their passengers get to walk through the marble memorial -- but no time for lookout hikes. In your private car, however, you can drive close, park and walk. I highly recommend it.