Hiking Mauna Kea

On snowy, single-digit temperature days, I daydream about Hawaii’s clear blue ocean waters and sandy beaches under sunny skies. I don’t think about climbing mountains, much less Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s highest peak.

A trip to the Big Island offers an opportunity to reach the summit of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano which stands 13,795 feet above sea level. Most people drive or take a tour bus up the eight-mile, steep, partially paved jeep road from the visitor center to the summit. Four-wheel drive vehicles are recommended although a friend drove his rental sedan up the road without difficulty. We didn’t inquire about the terms of his rental car agreement!

The other route is by foot: about 12 miles round trip. This long day excursion, starting at the visitor center, offers solitude and a different sort of hike from those in Colorado.Take plenty of food, water and gear because there is nothing but lava rock until the last mile when the trail ends at the jeep road.

Guidebooks claim that Mauna Kea’s bottom is 17,000 feet below the Pacific Ocean, arguably making it the tallest mountain in the world. It’s shrunk 3,500 feet over the last 500,000 years. Mauna Kea means White Mountain, perhaps aptly named because of the snowy summit during the winter months. This season, the area was closed on December 2^nd thanks to snowfall but reopened later. Call the visitor center to check road and summit conditions.

Ancient Hawaiians consider the mountain the home of Poli’ahu, the snow goddess. She got along poorly with Madame Pele who lived across the valley on Mauna Loa, which is in the Volcanoes National Park. The broad saddle between the two mountains was their battlefield.

On our first morning of a fall trip to the Big Island, Dave pointed out the mass called Mauna Kea from the lanai of our rented condo. I saw the gleam in his eyes focused on the peak poking above low-level clouds and knew we’d be climbing Hawaii’s highest peak. Swimming or even lying on the beach sounded more appealing. Okay, I admit that I’d read about the Humu’ula Trail on our flight to Hawaii. The 4,600-foot elevation gain sounded like lots of effort, especially given more leisurely options. But, I rationalized, hiking through some lush tropical vegetation to timberline would be a nice change from Colorado climbs, to say nothing of seeing the different birds and wildlife that we anticipated.

Two days later, we drove an hour from our sea level condo to the visitor center which sits at 9,200-feet. Two empty cars were parked in the lot. We located two maps of the area and signed a trail register outside of the locked visitor center. One couple had signed the trail register ahead of us that day.

I scanned a map and started hiking on a well-used dirt trail across from the visitor center. Within fifteen minutes, we realized that I’d relied on the wrong map. Twenty minutes later and after a bit of bushwhacking, we located the Humu’ula Trail, which is accessed off the jeep trail a hundred or so yards from the visitor center. On the correct trail, we hiked up a steady incline on dirt and some lava rock with scattered low shrubs bordering our path. The shrubs soon disappeared, replaced by black lava rock outcroppings amidst dirt. Once we crested the first long incline, a large dirt/rock mound lay straight ahead.

A handful of bushes with blooming yellow flowers and clumps of silver-colored grass provided some color along the mostly dirt trail that wove among lava rock and sand. We continued towards the large mound and skirted it by climbing up a fairly straight but steep incline. More rock and dirt greeted us at that saddle, leaving behind any hint of vegetation. Six-foot steel like poles marked the easy-to-follow trail through the lifeless moonscape.

We spied Mauna Kea’s summit in the distance. And white observatory domes to one side. Thirteen observatories/telescopes sit at least at 13,000 feet in the general vicinity of the summit and provide excellent stargazing opportunities. We learned later that most people drive or take a tour to the summit area at night to view the stars.

Lost in our own thoughts, we meandered through the lava rock and gained elevation. We could have been walking on the moon! Later, we read that astronauts trained for their moon excursions by walking on and around Mauna Kea’s summit!

In the distance, we spotted two people hiking, from the now visible jeep road, towards Lake Wai-au which sits at 13,200 feet and reportedly is the highest lake in the United States. We chose not to detour to the lake because 2 p.m. was our turnaround time to make sure we’d descend in daylight. We hiked through a portion of the Mauna Kea Ice Age Natural Reserve area and stopped at 1 p.m. for lunch when the Humu’ula’s dirt trail ended at the paved jeep road.

We only had an hour to reach and enjoy the summit- about a mile away. To be safe, we decided to hitch a ride the rest of the way and enjoy the views from the top. We waited for an infrequent car to drive up the road. A couple of minutes later, I heard an engine. The Nissan Armada stopped!

“Need a ride?” asked the woman in the passenger seat.

The amicable couple hailed from Miami, Florida, and some good friends of theirs lived in Leadville, just forty miles north of our home in Colorado. Gordon chatted about the hairy jeep road below, and Dave offered a few mountain driving tips. We drove past two government- looking observatories and turned around. Gordon parked near the one other car in a dirt lot, opposite the summit trail. He said he felt the altitude. No wonder. He’d gone from sea level to nearly 14,000 feet in probably ninety minutes!

We thanked our good Samaritans and headed across the road to the quarter-mile or so dirt trail that led up to the very broad summit. Only three other “hikers” passed us coming down. Wind swept the football field-sized summit, so we took shelter on one side of an impromptu offering to eat lunch.

As we looked around, clouds obscured most everything except for the observatories. No ocean views!

We descended more quickly than anticipated thanks to a fabulous scree slope between the paved switchbacks of the jeep road, and the Humu’ula trail’s good footing.

When we reached the visitor center, hordes of tourists milled around: some waited for buses to the summit. The sight shocked us after a day of not seeing another hiker or another living thing, except for one bug, on the Humu’ula trail! What a contrast to Colorado!