Signs Signs Everywhere Signs

Lava Flowing Into The Ocean

My wife and I just took a trip to Hawaii’s Big Island to see Kilauea erupting.  The top has a plume coming out of the summit crater and all trails surrounding the crater are closed.  There’s a nice viewpoint, but I sure wished I could cross the caldera floor and climb the edge of the crater to look down on the lava churning inside.  Signs all over proclaimed the trails closed.   It seemed a bit too dangerous, and I generally respect National Park trail closures and rules.

The flow passes outside the Park boundary where the lava meets the ocean.  Cheryl and I hiked down to the public viewing area, which allowed parking from 5pm to 10pm and herded everyone to a safe viewing along the coast about a quarter mile away from the lava.  I filmed, Cheryl took pictures, but the masses of flashes, flashlights, and screaming people really left a bad blight on an otherwise awesome spectacle.  It was awesome, and I recommend it to anyone visiting that area.  The sky is lit up with an orange plume rising from the coast and the lava explodes from time to time splaying red streaks through the air.  Really cool.

The entire mountainside above the coast was dotted with small fires from lava floes and I really wanted to see actual lava flowing.  When I booked the trip, that was the dream shot.  So the next morning I packed up my gear and headed back down to try to get near the actual lava flow.  I Google mapped a dirt road that would get me close to where I thought the lava was flowing on the mountainside.  I bumped down that road for quite a way before I was stopped by signs saying Private Property, No Trespassing along with other threats.  This was deep Hawaii and clearly a farm, so I heeded the signs and turned around, hoping to find another road around the farm that I could at least find a trail to travel on foot to the lava.  I did not find a good way in.

So I went back down to where Cheryl and I had been the night before knowing that it would be closed until 5pm.  The signs said Road Closed and Violators Will Be Prosecuted, but the way was open because it happens that people still live back in that area where the lava is flowing.  You can see houses in the middle of the lava fields that people clearly live in.  So I passed the sign.  I drove up to where Cheryl and I had parked the night before and started hiking up the hill instead of down toward the viewing area.  I passed many more signs warning me there was no admittance and another that said You Go Beyond This Sign At Your Own Risk!  Which translates to me that I am welcome to go, I’m just on my own and nobody is responsible for my actions but myself.  Now that’s a sign I like!  Just make it clear that you don’t condone me going and that I am on my own.  I can handle that.

So I started hiking up the lava fields toward the smoke on the hill.  The lava fields are amazing.  It started to get hot, and the going was way too slow over the rolling and broken lava.  It was clear to me that I would not be able to make it up and back down on the amount of water I had, so I turned and hiked to where the lava flowed into the ocean.

On the way, I came upon a curving line of smoking ground that was clearly an underground lava tube (Cheryl and I had traveled through an old tube the day before).  I stayed a safe distance away from the tube and made my way toward the coast, curving around the tube.  I came out onto lava oozing into the ocean.  My dream goal was complete!  The slow moving lava balled up into a huge boulder and then cracked apart as the ocean waves crashed in causing steam to billow into the sky.  I sat for about an hour and a half filming the show and just sitting and looking at it as I ate my lunch.

I guess I put my life at risk, according to the signs, but really I didn’t.  I am very careful and very conscious of what is around me and what I am doing.  But that’s just one guy going out onto the the lava fields.  If the area was open to the public, people would be dying out there weekly as they fell off the cliffs, cracked through the lava tubes, or walked to close to the lava flow getting hit by flying lava.  So I’m glad the signs were there as it left me as the only person out there that day with the ocean, the lava, and the sky all to myself.  Well, there were quite a few helicopters buzzing around, so the sky wasn’t my own, but those are the moments I live for, when the trek is long, the crowds drop away, and the view is all mine.

So when should you obey signs telling you to turn back?  Did I do something wrong?  Should I have been happy with staying where it was “safe”?  What signs are you willing to disobey and are you willing to face the responsibility?  Was I really ready to face the responsibility had something gone really wrong?  Probably not.

Let me know what you think.

Tony