Mauna Kea

The usual image of Hawaii is sun and beaches, however, two mountains on the big island are permanently snow-capped.

Visiting Mauna Kea's summit is breathtaking - literally because of the altitude - with its starkly beautiful landscape, snow on an ice-age landscape, overlooking a sea of clouds 2-3km below. Behind me in this picture and across the saddle is the massive bulk of the Mauna Loa volcano.

Visiting the summit of Mauna Kea was one of the highlights of my trip and it’s well worth the effort of getting there – 4km above sea level.

Access

The Mauna Kea summit can only be accessed by the Saddle Road turning off up the access road around the Mile 35 marker post. Most of the rental companies forbid 2WD cars being driven on the Saddle Road however the road is well-constructed and it wasn't a problem. You really should use a 4WD for the summit road however. 2WD cars chew up the road surface, which really annoys the astronomy folks as they jolt their way up the mountain to work in the morning.

It's a 45 minute drive from Hilo to the Mauna Kea visitor's center at 9000 feet. It's a good idea to take a break at the visitor’s center to adjust to the altitude. The center provides hot drinks and there are static exhibits on astronomy. They also sell factor-45 sunblock, and warm hat/gloves for the summit. It's best to wear good hiking boots rather than sneakers for walking on the icy summit.

I didn't have a 4WD so I hitched up from the visitor’s center. The visitor center staff estimated it would take between 6-8 hours to hike up the extra 6000 feet - slow going because of the altitude. (I walked down from the summit taking about 3 hours to descend - I had to fend off offers of rides.) If walking take plenty of water because the air is very dry.

To hitch a ride up and walk down it’s necessary to start hitching from the 9000-foot visitor’s center no later than midday. Allowing for 2 hours at the summit area and it's possible to be back to the visitor’s center park between 5-6pm.
To walk up and down you should start from the visitor’s center no later than 6am. (It will be closed at that time.) Allowing for 30 minutes altitude adjustment at the visitor’s center this would mean leaving Hilo no later than 4:30am.

The Summit

There is no visible plant life at the top of the mountain – at least nothing larger than algae. No birds or animals. Apparently there is some type of insect, a faction of a millimeter in size that feeds on the bodies of insects blown up from lower altitudes. The oxygen at the summit is reduced by 50% from sea level. This makes it difficult to move around quickly.

The summit area has been massively flattened and shaped to hold a dozen or so large astronomical telescopes which take advantage of the clear Hawaiian air. The mountain is of religious significance to the Hawaiian people and a shrine is placed on top of the actual summit peak itself. A day earlier I had seen an exhibition in the Lyman Museum in Hilo on the Hawaiian people’s reaction to the telescopes, roads, power cables and scientists that have intruded into the home of the snow god. There is apparently a hold on developing any further telescope sites and new sites will only become available as old telescopes are decommissioned. Some people agitating to have all the telescopes removed, however one look at the multi-billion dollar investment and it’s clear that it will take the next ice age to make that happen.

Climbing the summit peak from the observatory road took several strenuous minutes; the frozen footprints in the snow worked well as steps.

At the top there is a Hawaiian Shrine and a survey mark. Mauna Kea is an extinct volcano gradually eroding away, now down to 13,796 feet high. However that’s only the half of it, because together with Mauna Loa measured from the ocean floor base the mountains rise 32,000 feet from the seabed. This puts it several thousand feet taller than Everest.

I have stitched together a 270 degree panorama.

Going back down the 100meters from the summit to the observatory road was much more difficult than climbing up because of the icy surface. (Hiking boots recommended rather than sneakers.)

Ice Age Park

Observatories

There are unmanned visitor centers at two of the telescope complexes: a basic observation room at the University of Hawaii 88’ telescope and a more comprehensive visitor’s center (with the only public toilet on the summit) in the W M Keck twin telescope complex. Many of the telescopes on Mauna Kea are operating in a millimeter wavelength range, so it’s only possible to view the stars through a computer, not through an optical eyepiece. If you want to look through an actual telescope, then turn up around 6:30pm at the 9000 foot Visitors center further down the mountain for one of their nightly astronomy talks.

From surf to snow in 45 minutes

The first winter snow had arrived a week before I visited in late December and several snowboarders were making the most of the fresh snow.

The weekend thing to do on the Big Island is to drive the pickup to the top of the mountain. Then load up with the new winter snow in the back and bring it back down to the beach for the kids. It’s only an hour from the surf to the snow.

Lake Wai’au

At around 13,000 feet is the austere Lake Wai’au.

It’s hidden away out of sight of the main road. The lake wasn't sign-posted and the map provided by the visitor's center was short on details. I walked down 1km from the observatories to the 1st (highest) car park. Access to the lake is by climbing over the wire link fence across the road from the car park. There is no path or signposting. Then go across and up the flat area towards the saddle between the two low peaks. Just over the rise is the lake. It’s about a 30-minute strenuous round-trip in the thin air.