Originally, our long-awaited 2018 family excursion to Hawaii had an awesome VRBO home-base, located along The Big Island’s Southeastern coast, with Volcanoes National Park just up the road. In my mind, pre-planning for the future of “Rare Air,” I vaguely imagined trying to find the perfect vantage points to record the molten-red landscapes, as they dramatically oozed vapor trails toward the heavens. That’s pretty much what my travel research prepared me for, up until May 11.
On that day, Kilauea reminded the world exactly what active volcanoes do. Within a second of reading a story about the 30,000-foot eruption of ash and smoke, I emailed it to Beth. We quickly learned that our VRBO host was evacuating. Although we found some options for travel refunds, it seemed easy enough to keep our flights into Kona, and find a new villa on the island’s western edge. You may have seen where we wound up; despite Plan A going up in smoke, it all worked out fine.
Had Kilauea chilled – or delayed its fireworks by any number of weeks – I can only guess what might have happened; certainly, our fate would have altered. So it was, on July 25 – Beth’s birthday – we took off for the one “day trip” we had planned ahead of time using Andrew Doughty’s “Hawaii The Big Island Revealed” masterpiece. From his picturesque, detail-laden 8th edition (copyright 2016), the description for Kolekole Beach Park on page 125 hooked me completely.
Nearby Akaka Falls was flagged “Not to be missed!” – but the page’s lead photo showing kids sharing a rope swing, with a cascading waterfall in the background, made me feel like a hero when I presented it to Riley. Pointing out that spread, I read the caption aloud: “From a picnic table at Kolekole Beach Park you can either watch the ocean or watch the kids swinging off a rope swing next to a waterfall. Talk about an embarrassment of riches!”
Heading toward Akaka Falls and Hilo on Highway 19, we spotted the Kolekole sign, then built up to that pay-off by hiking every inch of Akaka Falls’ trails through the mid-day sun. We fairly well raced back, thrilled to experience the storied oasis. As you can see in the photo here, when the book was printed in 2016, the author’s description did still apply.
Unfortunately, our arrival in mid-2018 presented us with the new reality, as reported here. Instead of an embarrassment of riches, we found another type of embarrassment: Due to lead contamination, Kolekole Beach Park closed to the public in April, 2017.
Here’s something I have learned about myself and my view of life: I hate it when people ruin nature. I also gratefully acknowledge that nature can be highly resilient, even in nightmare scenarios. Along those lines, reading about the miracle of life abounding today in places like Chernobyl is at least somewhat encouraging.
In Hawaiian, Kolekole means raw, or scarred. Despite the park’s closure, Kolekole Stream still teems with life. Its three-mile course ascends to Akaka Falls, then rises nine more miles up Mauna Kea, to 8,000 feet. As you may recall from my previous post in this series, its inhabitants include the admirable ‘o’opu ‘alamo’o goby fish.
In the Rare Air 32 footage, although invisible, the younger of these adventurers are surely floating down this stream, under the bridge, past the currently unused rope swing, and out to sea. Simultaneously, their elders are slowly but surely scrambling back up stream, toward Akaka Falls, with the current against them, all the way.
How long until exquisite, raw nature overrides contamination by lead? Let’s hope it’s a heartbeat away. This and the next two Rare Air episodes carry a dark secret. If our luck holds, given time, our planet’s magnificent, sacred healing powers will win the future.
Hawaii Big Island, July, 2018
. December 2018 desktop calendar: Slideshow featuring select photos from our trip
. Rare Air Episode 30, Part 1: Trip overview; video from Puako on 7/28/18
. February 2019 desktop calendar: Waipi’o Valley Lookout
. Rare Air Episode 31, Part 2: Video from Akaka Falls on 7/25/18
. April 2019 desktop calendar: Kolekole Stream Bridge from Old Mamalahoa Highway
. Rare Air Episode 32, Part 3: You are here
. June 2019 desktop calendar: Kolekole Beach Park
. Rare Air Episode 33, Part 4: Ka’ahakini/Kolekole Streams
. August 2019 desktop calendar: Kolekole Beach Park
. Rare Air Episode 34, Part 5: Kolekole Beach
. October 2019 desktop calendar: Undersea in Puako Bay
. Rare Air Episode 35, Part 6: Video from Puako Bay on 7/28/18
