We book this tour because the only way to get to Mauna Kea is on 4WD, and all books advice against using Hawaiian roads as a learning experience.
We drive north of Kona towards South Kohala before we turn right onto Saddle Road, the notorious stretch that cuts across the island between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, two 4000m volcanoes. Mauna Kea (White Mountain), measured from the ocean floor, is claimed to be about 1000m taller then Everest. It has one of the thinnest air on earth, so the world's biggest telescopes are here and there's a long waiting list of astronomers who want to use the 'scopes. ("I'm sure we made the Subaru mirror," declares Mrs Arizona. "We have a giant telescope at the univerrrrsity too!")
In winter, it is snow-capped and people ski here before plumbing the depths of the ocean off Kona (it's dangerous to do it the other way around).
Mauna Loa is the world's largest active volcano - more about it in other posts.
As we cut across barren lava fields, we get a running commentary from our driver on when they were created (here, most of them are from the 1800s and earlier). I get another commentary from HB as she checks the GPS receiver - all the caches we are passing by!
We try to catch a snooze - still jet-lagged - but cock an eye open once in a while to see if the landscape has changed. Along Saddle Road, as we go uphill, we see cinder cones, some are red from the iron ore the fire had smelted from the land. We pass by the military base and the southern slopes of Parker Ranch, one of the largest in the US. It's a two-way road but cars drive in the middle because the sides have fallen off! No wonder rental companies won't allow cars here.
It takes almost two hours to get to the visitor centre. We are only just above the cloud line. There are other tour groups. We collect our parkas and mittens, queue for the loos and browse in the small souvenir shop. There is a video playing. We collect our packed dinner and sit at a picnic table with an SF man from the other bus. He sees our GPSr and we explain geocaching to him. We tell him there are lots of caches in the Bay Area. Like thousands. It's hard to wrestle with chicken teriyaki and black pepper ribs when the wind is trying to carry our boxes off across the rocks and dry grass.
It's strange to see the observatories perched on the barren peak. We are at above 12000 ft (metriculate that yourself). The highest point to the right of the 'scopes is kapu (taboo). We can't go in but can see one dome rotating. It's hard to hold the camera steady to take pictures if you don't use the flash because the wind is strong here and we have gloves on because it's really cold.
We watch the sun set and Mauna Loa casts its shadow on the clouds in front and below.
HB and I search for the UKIRT telescope - there is a webcam cache. But we cannot use our cellphones to call anyone because the 'scopes are in operation. So we just take a picture positioning me in the line of the webcam. We still claim a find as many others have done.
It is dark when we return to the visitor centre but we cannot do our star-gazing there because clouds have rolled in. After the loo break, we drive to another spot. It is frustrating because one of the computer-operated scopes doesn't want to cooperate and our driver/guide is not very good with it. The other driver/guide points the various constellations to us - Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Cygnus, Arcturus. Tonight, as a treat we can see both the North Star and Southern Cross! Jupiter is at its nearest to us, but the bright moon blocks out views of Jupiter's moons. We can see a binary star system. We even get to see a moonbow - the nocturnal version of a rainbow cast by moonlight against water crystals in the air.
Geocache count: 1
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