Leigh makes a January 2017 quick visit to the molten lava!~~~~~~~~~~~~~ But still a retired blog ...  |
| Heading back out of the fumes - May 2013 - Photo by Ron Boyle |
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| Serious ocean entry - July 2008 |
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| June 2013 inland near ocean |
Since last fall, the lava slowly ceased entering the ocean, so this ‘Daily’ has become rather quiet . Even before that, I was offering fewer updates as the months slid by.
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| I'm perched on the sea wall in 2013 |
It was never my intention to create anything remarkable with this blog. I simply wanted to share what I was already doing – hiking to the lava flow and documenting it with video and still photography.
For the first time ever I just looked at the “page views” for this blog. It’s at 690,696 as of today. Wow – I had no idea!
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| Waikupanaha ocean entry 2009 |
Erupting lava that you can walk right up to and see moving with your own eyes; watching raw earth being formed before you so close that the heat from it is searing, the fumes are stinging, the newly cooling lava is hissing, snapping and popping - where molten rock entering the ocean explodes into fireworks of glowing fragments while simultaneously, and instantly, creating a black sand beach ... well THAT is a world wonder!
I just had to share it all somehow!
I just had to share it all somehow!
And so ... I began this blog to allow others to witness, through my camera lenses and words, this amazing excretion of the earth’s magma core.
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| Inside a lava cave - Kalapana 2011 |
The coastal lava phase of the eruptions has ceased for now. Although molten lava continues to erupt from the earth as surface flows here on the Big Island, as I will detail a bit further down, it was hard to hike to, not all that exciting, smoky & hot; I no longer was documenting it, other than the occasional posting I have made in recent months.
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| Feeling the heat taking this one-- Beautiful forms lava can make~ |
This lack of accessible molten lava, combined with my desire to be back on the mainland with my family – 5 grown children and 5 granddaughters – has lead to this: Tomorrow I am leaving the big Island, after 16 exciting years of documenting its coastal lava flows.
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| Pulama Pali eruption February 2012 |
It was with a lot of heartfelt desire and work that I produced this blog. Especially during those super active years I covered here: 2009 to 2012, and a bit of 2013. (I was going to try to put together a link-list of highlights from those years but found the task daunting :)
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| Ocean entry and back fill flow 2008 |
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| June 2013 - 4 miles southwest of Kalapana |
When
activity was really exciting, I would return to the lava flow front after only a
few hours sleep – sometimes for days on end - and somehow still made the time
to upload & process my latest photos and write the day's blog before heading
back out the door to the lava; exhausting but also a pleasure.
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| Lava pouring out of the jungle April 29th, 2009 |
So I
want to give out a really big Thank-You! to all of you who have come along for the Hawaiian
Lava Daily ride!
I appreciated those who emailed me, or posted here, with such kind and supportive comments about my stories, photos and videos. Each one meant a lot to me.
I appreciated those who emailed me, or posted here, with such kind and supportive comments about my stories, photos and videos. Each one meant a lot to me.
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| Cold lava with amazing color banding; very large roping |
It
was also a treat to meet many of you while you visited the island, or you
locals and friends that came by my lava photo display booth to talk story.
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| My photo booth back in the good days |
And a super-special mahalo to
those of you who so generously contributed to my lava film; the 34-minute
documentary chronicling the powerful 2010 lava flow that brought the demise of
Gary Sleik’s home here in Kalapana Gardens, and two others. -- (By the way, if there is anyone who sent me
a donation and somehow did not receive last year’s draft of the film, please
email me and I will send you the latest draft.)
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| You have to see this one in the large view window! - Spot Gary's home in this scene |
Speaking
of that documentary, NBC Universal is currently developing a special presentation
based on my movie. I do not know yet when it will be aired on their cable
network. They were just here a few weeks ago interviewing both Gary and me. I
shot some of the footage of Gary looking over his burned out
homestead for them. AND, Gary has just bulldozed a new road into his otherwise
lava-severed property!
He’s going to build out there again!
The NBC producer, Lauren, took these two photos of us.
The NBC producer, Lauren, took these two photos of us.
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| Leigh Hilbert & Gary Sleik January 27th, 2014 |
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| Gary's infamous 'lava viewing chair' remains forever embedded (Featured a few times in my movie; before, during and after the lava claimed it) ~~~~ |
So while
Gary reclaims his Kalapana land, I reclaim the lands I was born and raised on -
the Pacific Northwest coastlines.
Another
reason to end Hawaiian Lava Daily is that all eruption activity is being well
covered others: touring outfits, photographers and as always, by Hawaii Volcano Observatory (HVO) via the US Geological Survey (USGS). In recent years they have improved every aspect of their methods,
equipment; coalescing it all within their well laid out website: Kilauea Volcano Updates
My last lava update:
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At the ocean entry Feb 2013 -
Getting one last look before hiking out - Photo by Ken Carl |
My last lava update:
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| The ocean entry lava a year ago Photo by Vika Ostrovsky |
Meanwhile, eruptive fissures along the east flanks of Pu`u O`o also host a surface flow of lava, named the ‘Kahauake’e 2 flow’, which is presently 4.8 miles east-northeast of the crater (see USGS updates link above). This flow is randomly, and slowly, advancing into remote forests only a couple of miles southeast from the community of Glenwood - slightly uphill to the north, about five miles west of the town of Pahoa, and a few miles south of Hawaiian Acres subdivision.
Its advancement is very much affected by magma chamber
inflation and deflation beneath Kilauea Volcano, and is flowing across relatively flat &
unoccupied lands… But, the terrain there does lean down slope and is blocked on
the south by the higher Kilauea’s east rift zone pu`u cinder cone alignment.
As I
have written many times before, it is nearly fruitless to predict what the
volcano Fire Goddess Pele will do next. That said, I will offer this projection of where the flow might proceed to: (click on an image to see it larger)
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| Surface lava flow field: the brighter red on map below. Pu`u O`o five miles away in the middle distance |
I could not locate a proper
topography map online, which would have narrowed down my loose projections a lot
better, so I have used the February 20th
2014 USGS/HVO surface lava flow map and have added some sloppy green lines indicating the general area I think the lava could possibly flow in to if it somehow continues advancing; might take years to get there, if ever, … But if it did, it sure would make for some interesting times in the lower Puna district!
2014 USGS/HVO surface lava flow map and have added some sloppy green lines indicating the general area I think the lava could possibly flow in to if it somehow continues advancing; might take years to get there, if ever, … But if it did, it sure would make for some interesting times in the lower Puna district!
The other two eruption
outcomes I could see as likely scenarios are a new, possibly dramatic, fissure eruption
either below Pu`u O`o (it is plugged full of hot lava right now), or, a fissure
eruption just down the Chain of Craters road a short ways below the massive 530-foot wide caldron of molten undulating rock, the Halema`uma`u
crater, in an area where I have been seeing periodic earthquake clusters the past
few years … But I really have no idea at all… Better to let the super
geologists we are gifted to have on this island give us the heads-up:) ... Then there is always the eerily quiet Mauna Loa volcano ..... Hilo could look like this : )
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| My world of molten lava at moonset |
Aloha Nui to you all,
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| At the lava flow front February 10th, 2013 The wind damn-near gave me a mohawk ! Photo by Ken Carl |
Happy trails too!
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