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The day began with a panoramic gaze across the Kilauea Caldera on the Big Island of Hawaii. Rising out of the side of Mauna Loa, the caldera rests at an altitude of 4200 feet above sea level. By some measures, though, we were just shy of the summit of the tallest mountain on Earth.
The island’s rain forest was proving itself aptly described with visibility not more than a stone’s throw. Questing, we began a snaking 12 mile descent down the Chain of Craters Road to find the spot where rangers said lava was flowing to the water’s edge. Along the way, road signs denoted earlier lava flows by date: 1969 - 1974, 1982 and the ongoing eruption which has been flowing since 1983.
Suddenly, still high above the volcanic cliffs and Hawaiian waves, the weather cleared. Before us was an immense coastal lava plain extending to the water and laterally to the horizon.
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Volcanologist’s have a glossary of terms to describe the intricacies of their passion similar to the lexicon of Eskimo words for snow.
Kilauea produces two principle kinds of lava. Fortunately, our journey was across pahoehoe (pah-hoay-hoay): sharp as glass but with a smooth, bulbous texture. `A`a (ah-ah) is a jumbled stew consisting of broken lava chunks that result in an incredibly jagged and sharp surface. The right conditions can transform pahoehoe into `a`a.
With no clear path for the three mile hike to flowing lava, we asked the ranger to set us off in the right direction. These were her exact words (accompanied by the wry smile often extended from delighted mentor to embarking pilgrim): "Hike onto the lava and follow the yellow markers until they end. Then, there'll be six orange cones at various peaks. You'll see steam vents along the way. When you get to the end of those, look for heat waves, listen for hissing and popping and go in that direction...you'll find it."
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This landscape has the topography of a grade 5 river rapid frozen in suspended animation. It’s like the surface of a giant, flaky brownie. Really, though, it isn’t like anything at all. Volcanoes are originators of both earth and metaphors.
The wind was fierce. The sun was bright. We hiked a healthy quarter mile inland from the coastline, averting the thrilling but structurally unsound lava delta.
Lava travels from the summits of volcanoes through lava tubes with blazes of red occasionally visible though skylights. But when its pressure forces the fluid Earth to meet the air, huge open lava beds can be encountered as it oozes to gravity’s call at the water’s edge.
True to the ranger’s words, as we moved through the silver-black landscape of ropy rock, lava coils and structures evocative of earthen entrails, we began to see little wisps of steam and, eventually, feel gusts of warm, sulfurous wind.
Then, we were upon it.
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The mouth gapes. Words fail.
There is no sensical aesthetic or scientific response. I did not feel what is conventionally called awe - with its sense of reverence cut with fear. It was simpler than that.
Love is the most apt description. I felt love.
The lava felt sentient, animate and purposeful. Watching it go about its work, toes crawling across old flows, was fulfilling work itself.
The distinction between animate and inanimate seems arbitrary. Denying rock “animate” or even “sentient” status seems a perverse kind of anthropomorphism - expecting rock to exemplify animation in a manner consistent with human understanding of that attribute. Encountering exposed magma illicits a knowing that precedes all that is human. It made me perceive millions of years as a completely reasonable timespan.
As soon as we turned to start the three mile return hike, I registered a paradigmatic shift in my perspective. Everywhere, the rock I saw - see - bears a latent liquidity. Now and forever, the bedrock upon which this, and every, city rises is liquid rock - but a phase change away.
Posted by mark at January 23, 2005 05:24 PM
