What lava junkies often fail to mention in their ardor for the
grail itself is the journey. Hiking through a cooled and set lava
field is a lovely, though focused, experience. I say focused
because there are two kinds of Hawaiian lava. One is called
pahoehoe. It hardens smooth and ropelike and, other than the fact
that it sometimes breaks away underfoot like panes of glass, it
offers easy egress. The second lava form is aa, which likely has
some profound Hawaiian meaning, but ably Âmimicked the sounds I
mouthed as I moved, as quickly and delicately as possible, over its
jagged surface.
The cooled lava gave off a lovely crystalline sheen, the dark rock
often delicately glazed with a silver burnish. It had solidified in
infinite shapes, phantasmagoric moldings one might grasp remotely
if one had ever dabbled in hallucinogens. The lava stretched away
in all directions, a dark, undulating sea with nary a mast on the
horizon.
To reach the flow, I hiked for roughly an hour, ascending a portion
of Mauna Loa's great flank. Once there, I stood reverentially with
my fellow acolytes, gazing upon a sight new to most of us and old
as time.
Life changes are not always dramatic. My own came to light simply.
Hiking back in the darkness, my eyes rose to the moon. It was no
longer merely a fingernail sliver. It gazed down upon Genesis and
my own trivial form with a Cheshire-cat smile.
safe lava
a few simple tips to keep your lava encounter from morphing from
life-changing to life-threatening.
before you go, check the current activity level of your volcano of
choice via the activity reports at the
smithsonian institution's
global volcanism program,
www.volcano.si.edu/gvp.
consider hiring a local guide. a good one will know the volcano,
and its risks.
be prepared for weather. volcanoes generate their own weather, and
it can be sudden, schizophrenic, and severe.