Hiking 6,000ft up on the slopes of Hualalai Volcano

Enjoying beautiful views, 6000ft up the side of Hualalai Volcano. This is a high ridgeline next to a massive volcanic fissure. In 1800 the land split apart and lava came fountaining out, creating this ridge we are on.

Hawaii is filled with amazing hikes. There are hikes to waterfalls and up steep hills to WWII bunker relics. But some of my favorite hikes are well off the beaten path. That definitely describes the hike we went on today. Way up the side of the Big Island's Hualalai Volcano, behind closed gates, is a wonderful hike that passes interesting volcanic geology, through pristine native Hawaiian forest, all while being serenaded by endemic honeycreeper birds. All of these things are seldom seen by locals, and almost never seen by tourist visiting the islands. You need special permission to access these ancient royal lands, but that is why I wanted to take you with me through photos and stories into this wonderful, wild, place.

Known as the 'Hidden Craters' hike, only one local vendor has access, Hawaii Forest and Trails. Their expert guides really immerse you into the unique landscape. Its impossible not to feel a connection to this place. 6,000ft up, it feels comfortable hiking in a fleece, especially when the clouds move through at breakneck pace. You wind through 200 year old lava flow, with a young pioneering forest of O'hia trees, along the ridge lines of splatter cones, and into ancient native Koa forest. Before doing this hike, I wasn't even sure these type of forest still existed. The entire time a serenade of bird calls fills the air around you. These bright red, green, and yellow honeycreepers, are all descendant from one finch ancestor that somehow made it to the islands and then evolved to fill different niches. One of them, the I'iwi, has a bill like a hummingbird now. I always tell my guests that Charles Darwin would have loved this place.

So come along, enjoy the pictures, and feel like you were there with me.

I was quite please with this Apapane photo. The 1/1200th shutter speed was enough to capture the wings in full flight.

Spelunking our way through an underground lava tube, 6,000ft up on Hualalai Volcano in Hawaii.

At this elevation, native Hawaiian plants, like this beautiful Ohia, thrive. Native honeycreeper birds also thrive in this habitat, thanks to the lack of mosquitos.

A long lens, this one a 400mm, is necessary to get photos of these rare and endemic honeycreepers here. They move fast, won't stay still for long, and are often deep in the foliage. I snagged this shot just before this apapane flew away.

This is a Hawaiian amakihi. There is a different species of amakihi on each of the bigger Hawaiian islands. Darwin would have loved it out here.

A shallow depth of field was necessary to bring out the bokeh in the background of this amakihi photo.

I may have spruced up this skull to get a laugh from the guests.

I did a super close up of these O'helo berries, which makes them look much larger than they really are.

A young O'hia tree, pioneering the 200 year old lava field.

Our native O'hia tree has tiny seeds, seen here, that can be blown in the wind for thousands of miles. That is how it would have first colonized these islands. We think it blew here all the way from New Zealand, where its closest relative exist today.

I posed the group under this skylight inside a lava tube that we climbed down into.

We used this rope to help us descend into a lava tube.

Hiking on the rim of a splatter cone which formed under a massive lava fountain eruption in 1801.

Usually the clouds obscure this view, but today we were treated with a beautiful view all the way down to the coast.

The beauty of this hike up in Koloko is the change in ecosystems that we go through. Here we are approaching the top of the 1801 eruption, while a much older cinder cone can be seen covered in forest to the left.

Heidi, challenging herself by climbing down into a lava tube.

Hiking in the 200year old emerging o'hia forest.

This ohia tree survived the last eruption. No one knows how old it is, but hundreds of years at least.

Heading up an old goat trail. The initial part of the hike really gets your blood pumping. Everyone quickly realized how acclimatized to sea level we had become.

The final part of the hike saw us descend through an ancient fern and koa forest.

Here we entered the koa forest, a totally different environment. Most people in Hawaii don't even realize that koa forest still exist. These trees were mostly cut down in the kingdom days, being one of the few valuable items for western merchants who came to the islands.

As always, keep traveling!
-Dai Mar