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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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We visited the park on our circle island tour and had lunch in the Volcano's House. We then drove around crater rim drive and stopped to walk through Thurston Lava Tube.
The highlight of our trip was hiking out to the erupting Kilauea volcano. We had been advised by a family member to wait until the evening to hike out. We drove into the park in the afternoon and headed down Chain of Craters Rd. Once we got a ways down the road, you could see the steam from the lava entering the ocean. This is sight enough worth seeing if you don't want to hike over lava rock in the heat.
We got to the end of the road where people are parked on the side of the road. We parked, grabbed our backpack, 2 flashlights (one for each person) with NEW batteries, and plenty of water bottles and snacks and headed out.
The hike is long and tiring and hot out to the active lava. There are markers in the beginning, but then you just head toward the steam. Once you get to where you can see the lava entering the ocean really well, most people stop here and watch it for a while. You can look up the mountain and see lava flowing down, which is easier to see when it's getting dark.
We were feeling a little more adventurous and decided to walk to the other side of the lava flow where we saw some other people sitting. We could hear crackling under us, which was probably lava underneath the rock. We came upon a hole that was glowing from the lava underneath, it was pretty cool. This hole eventually started erupting with lava and turned into a lava flow that was within a 100 feet of us. You could feel the intense heat. It started raining and you could hear hissing from the rain hitting the lava.
I look back now and realize how dangerous this hike can be. Be careful.
previous travel blog entry
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