Vog (volcanic fog) is a mixture of humid air with sulfurous gasses that is formed when warm and hot air mingle near areas of volcanic activity. Exposure to vog can result in severe problems for people with pulmonary problems, while those with normal respiration can experience a burning sensation in the lungs, headaches and fatigue. The fragrance bears a faint resemblance to diesel exhaust combined with gunsmoke and is frequently present near the 4,091-foot summit of Kilauea, the Big Island’s lowest but most active caldera. This would be our destination for tonight.

Having determined that preparing anything more than coffee or cocktails in our Pakalana room held little appeal, we arose and went in search of breakfast. Downtown Hilo is divided from the bay by a broad swath of Banyan-shaded parklands and a series of parallel roadways. The season for canoe regattas was underway. Competing crews gathered to practice for the upcoming trials. The town is not the typical beach resort one imagines. Those are all clustered around Kona-Kailua on the other side of the Big Island. Old Hilo is a relic of the last century, where it would not be a stretch to find Humphrey Bogart on a bar stool swapping lies with Sidney Greenstreet. Apart from the weekly infusion of cruise-ship shoppers there seem to be relatively few tourists, who prefer the drier climes and five star amenities of the Kona Coast. Hilo received more annual rainfall than Seattle while the western side of the island is semi-arid. We found no mainland-style diners or lunch counters, per se. Instead there is an abundance of eat-and-run coffee-shops or places like Paul’s and the Surf Break Café.
Along the northern stretch of Kilauea Street we ducked into Le Magic Pan, which occupied an oversized street-front space in a building from the nineteen-twenties of thirties. Strong coffee washed down ham and cheese Crepes Parisien. The server was a pretty young Eastern European woman (we did not inquire from where) who had recently arrived on the island and seemed delighted with Hilo. Fortified, we paid the check, returned to our quarters, packed and set off for an overnight near the summit of Kilauea. En route we stopped at S. Tokunaga hunting and fishing supply on the south end of town to purchase a headlamp. Mike had advised it as the plan was for us to be drawing and painting volcanic activity in the dark. I naively expected to be able to dash in, choose between one or two options, make a purchase and keep moving. Instead the salesman showed us a dizzying array of contraptions, from which I selected a Fenix HP05 350 lumen. Kathie was disappointed they did not have one in red.
We proceeded to Volcano village, less than an hour’s drive to the south. The outskirts of Hilo are undistinguishable from highway strips all over the United States—same brand-name tire stores, lube shops and burger joints that suddenly petered off into semi-rural terrain and as we ascended, into a dense cloud forest.
Arriving at the gate to Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park we paid fifteen dollars for a week’s access. Passing broad meadows billowing steam vents, we proceeded to reconnoiter the Kilauea Military Camp, where we would be spending the night. It was barely noon. Mike and the crew from the university were not due to arrive before five o’clock. Kathie (a colonel’s daughter) attempted to establish an early beachhead and failed. We had lunch in a Thai restaurant at a strip mall outside of Volcano Village, purchased a few more provisions—sunscreen and bug spray—and returned to the park. Passing the barrier we made a sharp left turn, which would have been easy to miss had I not noticed it when we exited an hour before. Descending Chain of Craters Road, we passed the promised concatenation of dormant craters many of which were overgrown with dense vegetation.

Steam seeped from cracks in their rocky walls. The cloud forest gave way to grassy meadows and lava fields, punctuated with shrubby trees. The narrow roadway ran along a ridge that shadowed the brink of a great precipice rising perhaps fifteen hundred feet above the coastal plain below. Suddenly the road plunged to a hairpin turn on the face of the escarpment and then looped its way down to a vast expanse of hardened lava, giving us the sensation of being like field mice crossing a freshly plowed field. Two kinds of lava—Pahoehoe, which is created by slow-moving flows and A’a’, which is created by sudden eruptions, may range in color from black to reddish-brown. Pahoehoe resembles caramel slurry or the surface of a brownie while A’a’ is recognizable as large, jagged clumps like soil cut by a plow. A cluster of parked cars along a bend in the road at the bottom of the hill marked our destination—the Pu’u Loa petroglyphs.

To be continued