Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park

Listen for a moment. Under the wind, there is a low hiss — steam rising from cracks in the ground near your feet. The air smells faintly of sulphur, like a struck match. The ground here is black, glassy, and in places it still feels warm. You are standing on some of the youngest land on Earth. Parts of this island did not exist when your grandparents were born. Welcome to Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, on the southeastern side of the Big Island.

Two volcanoes share this park. The first is Kīlauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. The second is Mauna Loa, its enormous neighbour, which rises to the west in a long, gentle slope. Mauna Loa is so broad that it is easy to miss how tall it really is. Measured from its base on the ocean floor, it is among the largest volcanoes on the planet. Its last eruption came in late 2022, when lava glowed across its high flanks for several weeks.

These are shield volcanoes. The name comes from their shape — wide and low, like a warrior's shield lying on the ground. They do not explode in great blasts the way some mountains do. Instead, runny lava pours out and spreads, layer after layer, over hundreds of thousands of years. Every flow adds a little more to the island. Here, you can watch geology happen on a human timescale, not a textbook one.

Now look toward the great summit crater, called Kaluapele, and the deeper pit inside it, Halemaʻumaʻu. For Native Hawaiians, this is not only a geological feature. It is the home of Pele, the goddess of volcanoes and fire. In Hawaiian tradition, Pele shapes the land, destroys it, and creates it again. Chants and dances honour her to this day. People still leave offerings near the crater rim. Please treat these with respect, and leave them where they lie.

The crater you see today is not the crater of a few years ago. In 2018, Kīlauea went through a dramatic change. Magma drained away from the summit toward an eruption in the lower Puna district, to the east. As the support beneath it vanished, the summit floor collapsed in stages. Thousands of earthquakes shook the area over several months. Halemaʻumaʻu became far wider and deeper. Meanwhile, the eruption in Puna destroyed hundreds of homes and added new land to the coastline.

Here is something many visitors miss. Scientists have watched this volcano closely for more than a century. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory was founded in 1912, led by a geologist named Thomas Jaggar. It became a model for volcano monitoring around the world. Instruments on these slopes measure how the ground swells and sinks, almost like a breathing chest. When magma fills the chambers below, the summit rises. When it drains, the summit falls. Kīlauea is one of the most studied volcanoes on the planet.

The park itself has a long story. It was created in 1916, at first together with Haleakalā on the island of Maui. The two parks were separated in 1961. Later, the world recognised this place as well. It became an International Biosphere Reserve in 1980, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. That second title means it is protected as a site of value to all of humanity, not only to Hawaiʻi or the United States.

As you walk, look closely at the lava itself. It comes in two main types, and both carry Hawaiian names used by geologists everywhere. Pāhoehoe is smooth and ropy. It looks like thick, folded cake batter that froze in place. ʻAʻā is rough, broken, and sharp — painful to walk across in thin shoes. The same eruption can produce both. The difference often comes down to temperature, gas, and how fast the lava was moving when it cooled.

Sometimes you may notice fine golden threads caught in cracks or on the grass. These are called Pele's hair. They are strands of volcanic glass, stretched thin by the wind as lava fountains into the air. Small glassy drops sometimes form at their ends, known as Pele's tears. They are fragile and sharp, so do not handle them. Locals say that taking lava rock home brings bad luck — a popular tale, not a law of nature. But the park does ask you to leave everything in place.

Life returns to this land faster than you might expect. Look for the ʻōhiʻa lehua tree, often the first to grow on new lava. Its red, brush-like blossoms stand out bright against the black rock. In Hawaiian stories, the tree is tied to a pair of lovers, separated by Pele's jealousy. You might also see the nēnē, a gentle grey-brown goose. It is Hawaiʻi's state bird. Once close to extinction, it now walks along roadsides here. Please never feed it.

The park offers very different worlds within a short drive. Near the summit, the Nāhuku lava tube is a tunnel left behind when the outer crust of a lava flow hardened, and the molten river inside drained away. Walking through it feels like entering the vein of the island. The Kīlauea Iki trail crosses the floor of a crater that erupted in 1959. Farther south, the Chain of Craters Road descends toward the sea, past old flows and ancient petroglyphs carved into stone.

The weather here can surprise you. The summit sits at about 1,200 metres above the sea, so it is often cool, misty, and wet, even when the coast below is hot and sunny. Clouds can roll in quickly. There is also a local word you may hear — vog. It means volcanic smog, a haze of gas and fine particles. On some days it softens the view. On others, it can irritate the lungs. Check the conditions at the visitor centre before a long hike.

If you stay into the evening, the mood of the park changes. When Kīlauea is active, the crater can glow orange against the night sky. The steam turns pink, then red. People gather quietly along the rim, wrapped in jackets, speaking in low voices. Whether lava is visible depends entirely on the volcano. There are no promises here. That uncertainty is part of the place. You come as a guest, and Pele decides what she will show you.

So take one more breath of this sulphur air. Feel the cool wind and the hard black ground beneath your shoes. Look at the steam lifting from the cracks, and the small red blossoms on the ʻōhiʻa trees nearby. Everything around you is still being made. The island under your feet is growing, shifting, and breathing. As you walk away, notice how new the land looks — and remember that it is new.