Interisland Airways, Halemaumau Crater (Volcano) - Tom Barefoot

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The Crater of Halemaumau in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is certainly one of the most spectacular sites to be witnessed on the tour with Interisland Airways. Although Halemaumau has played a prominent role in the course of volcanic activity at Kilauea over the course of centuries it has been somewhat docile in recent years until its fiery re-emergence in March of 2008. This was its first explosive eruption since 1924. Since then an ever present plume of sulfur dioxide (as of the date of this article, Nov. 24th, 2009) has been a continuous feature at the Halemaumau site. The day Jake and I made our way there which was Nov. 23rd 2009, we saw huge plumes of white sulfur dioxide that can be viewed in our video documenting the events of that day, but just the day before significant earthquake activity was recorded at the site and a rare but beautiful emergence of brown smoke and particulate exploded from the gaping fissure causing quite a stir among those who witnessed it. This amazing spectacle of nature has in fact proven to be deadly over the years and it is purported to have been the scene of a deadly outburst that perhaps killed dozens of Hawaiian warriors who were in the eruption zone in or close to the year 1790. One of the most amazing photographs that can be viewed on the walls of the Jagger Museum located on the rim of Halemaumau shows perhaps twenty of so men dressed in the attire of the 1920's laughing and apparently quite unafraid as they stood at the overlook while behind them a spectacular eruption smaller but not unlike the footage seen during the eruption of Mount St. Helens rumbled behind them in 1924. The lava lake at the craters bottom which intermittently rises and falls over the course of years was evidently quiet enough in 1866 for the American novelist, Mark Twain, to make the sojourn to the caldera floor and cautiously walk about.

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