If you
take the Chain Of Craters Road down to the end, you can walk out on a trail that
will take you to the active lava flow from Kilauea, which is currently from the
Pu'u'O'o (pronounced Pu-u-oh-oh) vent.
I went out a couple of miles, where I was literally on top of the active lava
tubes that were going out to the sea. While walking out there the temperature
literally shot up to the point that it felt like a sauna. I didn't go all the
way to the flow because of the nasty fumes. I ended up meeting a geologist and
talked about my experience out there. He said that the lava was probably about
20 feet below me. Close enough for comfort.
This is at the start of the trail. You can see where the lava crossed over the
highway that used to go through here. At one time there was a visitor center for
the park, but it was taken out by a lava flow a few years ago.
There are some very interesting lava formations that you will see while walking
out on the lava fields. These are some features that I noticed. Notice in the
third picture in the second row. The silver-likecolor indicates a more recent
flow.
These are a couple of pictures of the active flow going into the sea.
These are some pictures of the area. The yellow tags that you see in the pictures
are the trail from the parking lot at the bottom of the road that takes you out
onto the lava flow. The picture on the right is a speed limit sign in the middle
of a lava flow.
