Lava Breakout at Night! (Big Island, Hawaii)

In September 2002, we took our third trip to the Big Island. We came here simply because we had seen on the news that Pu'u 'O'o was sending surface flows close to the end of Chain of Craters Road in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

We were here a year earlier and had to hike about 2.5 miles over the lava fields to reach the surface flows. We felt that if we could see them without a repeat of such great effort, it would be well worth the expense.

We were correct!

We ventured down to the end of Chain of Craters Road on two consecutive mornings before dawn and found the lava crossing right at the end of the road. Even if you were wheelchair bound, you could have accessed these flows!

As we looked uphill towards Pu'u 'O'o we saw nothing but black with glowing tiny streams of orange coming towards us. With clouds blocking most light from moon and stars, the majority of light came from the glowing lava. It was rather eerie to see the orange streams glowing in the middle of all that darkness.

We walked out onto the flows to get a closer look.

I found an interesting spot where the lava was flowing slowly on both sides. I set up my tripod and video camera and started recording.

This video segment is simply a breakout that happened no more than 30 feet from my position. I was just glad to be able to see it from such close proximity.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Hawaii
• Big
• Island
• travel
• volcano
• National
• Park
• adventure
• hike
• hot
• molten
• lava
• night
• vacation
• unique
• outdoors
• travel log
• surface
• flow

[yayeababy]

wish someone would make a nice long video of just pure lava flow, no talking on the camera to ruin the scene with their silly comments, just a calm constant flow of lava...having a hard time finding a video like this..it would rule all others

[BlueCollarTraveler]

@yayeababy

Obviously, you have not been looking very long on YouTube. Shall I demonstrate how to use the search function here?

[spoloon]

isn't that hot standing there

[BlueCollarTraveler]

It can be. We were up-wind with 10-15mph wind gusts pushing the hot air away. However, the radiant heat is still felt if you get too close.

[thenoobyofafresh]

um if i were there maybe id be running? just maybe?

[BlueCollarTraveler]

Naaa. No need to overly react to a peaceful situation.

[54spiritedwill54]

Lava is so awesome

[matycee]

i bet it tastes hot

[unnamedking1]

It's funny how I did the same thing in the kalapana area

[waty0usay1]

i woulda just quickly run there and stick my dick in front of that hole.

[xTIxLyricz]

If I saw lava in hawi I would fucking scream like a litle girl and get of the island

[HyperionStudios]

Kinda sadly ironic since our planet is technically still cooling after 4.3 billion years :(

[megatronprime1000]

that is hot 6000000 degrees man

[JEIWILBER]

How our planet is inside !

[md0206]

@matycee put a stone in the oven and put it in your mouth

[SSPoseidon846]

hot 'n' spicy i would imagine :P