How to get there:
Locate Saddle Hwy. running across the saddle between
Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Next, find Observatory Road going
towards Mauna Loa. This road is paved, single lane, but with many
places where one easily can take care of oncoming traffic.
The road is in many respects, better than many State Highways in
Western Norway, no big deal at all.
Drive 17 miles to just
below the Observatory. There is a signed
Public Parking on your left, 6-7 spaces.
Route description:
The route is well marked with cairns all the way. There is actually a path
most of the way. The trick is to always walk close to the cairns. Most of
the way you may walk on smooth rock, half way up the trail is really
nice. There is no need to walk into the sharp volcanic rocks, the trail
crosses some such areas, but then there is always a path avoiding most
of the sharp rocks. Still, the distance feels quite long, this
volcano gets increasingly flat as you get closer to the summit.
Comments:
Heidi and I had arrived on Sunday evening. It seemed about right to
go climb this famous volcano on Wednesday - after adjusting to the somewhat
brutal 12 hour shift in time from Norway.
I left our rented condo around 0600 and started walking by 0725. The weather was
perfect, blue sky and almost no wind. It had been raining lower down as clouds covered
the huge saddle across to Mauna Kea.
Based on reports, I had expected sort of rough terrain, but the trail was actually quite
good most of the way. Of more concern, I quickly started to feel fatigue and I noticed
that my vertical gain was way below normal standard. Initially, I thought that the
transfer from sea level to above 3500 meter could be blamed, but I was never short of
breath. Proceeding uphill, my forward progress became embarrasingly slow, felt like
snail's pace. I still decided to keep going, there should be sufficient time even for
such a slow pace.
I arrived at the summit cairn
at 1250, so almost 5.5 hours up. I rested, took a look at
the impressive caldera,
then walked a bit more along the rim to a rocky point that possibly
could be equally high? My GPS measured one meter lower, thus impossible to conclude
this without a hand level.
Leaving at 1305, I descended in about 4 hours, still slower than expected.
I met a couple about 3 kilometer from the summit. They asked if they could see the
top, I guess my reply was somewhat disappointing: "Still a long way to go".
Shortly, I met 2 more hikers, they turned around quite soon after we met and caught up
with me on descent. Finally, I met a single man, he asked if he would come to some
viewpoint fairly soon, again a bit of a negative reply.
I drove back home and found that Heidi had caught Covid, a test the next day confirming.
It is likely that I also caught some similar bug on Sunday when we travelled, however
my test was negative (falsely?). In any event, I was definitely not healthy the following
day and the most likely explanation for my poor performance was that I had some kind
of infection in my body.