Backpacking Mauna Loa Day 3: The Summit and The Descent | December 16, 2018

[Read previous days here: Day 1 / Day 2]

Unfortunately, our night in Mauna Loa cabin was anything but restful. It seems that I have not mastered the skill of being able to fall asleep anywhere at any time as Curtis has — which is why he’s the submariner and I am not. I wasn’t able to nap before the large group arrived. While my body was weary and exhausted, my mind just couldn’t shut off.

Lying there above 13,000 feet was a weird feeling. I was constantly evaluating how I felt for any signs of altitude sickness. I’m not sure if my head hurt because of my neck and shoulder muscles from my heavy backpack, from dehydration and sun exposure, or from the altitude. It wasn’t a pounding headache, just a dull ache, so I wasn’t too concerned. Curtis also had a headache and said he wasn’t able to regulate his body temperature.

All things considered, we really didn’t have it that bad. When the group arrived at the cabin, they came with all sorts of symptoms. There was a lot of coughing and sniffling. Then in the middle of the night, we were awoken by one of the members that got sick. I’ll spare you the details, because she spared us none. That kept me awake for far too long. I started to regret being inside the cabin with all these people and their germs, but I knew it would be much colder outside on the summit.

The group stayed awake far later than us, talking and laughing with the occasional “Shhhh people are trying to sleep!” then the whispers would creep up back to talking normally and laughing, cycling through like this for hours. The group leader was constantly making more food and yelling out asking if people wanted any. The words “Couscous,” “Pudding,” and “Hot Chocolate” would continue to haunt us, playing over and over in our heads throughout the long and sleepless night. To make matters worse, as the night went on and no one was going to bed, the leader called out “I need at least 2 people to set alarms for 4:30!”

4:30 came way too soon. But the group didn’t all pack up and leave right then…no… They hung around talking, laughing, making breakfast, eating, and packing for about 2 hours. Curtis and I remained in our sleeping bag cocoons waiting for them to leave.

Over and over, I asked myself why? Why didn’t we change our permits for the next day and just stay in the drive-up campground in the national park that first night? Could we possibly have had this cabin to ourselves a day later if we did? I made myself believe that God had it work out this way for a reason. There had to be a reason why we ended up in this situation.

Once the group was gone, we got up and made our breakfast and packed up our things. We vented about all the little things that annoyed us, and that made us feel better. I was still exhausted, but our heads were feeling better and we were ready to take on the day.

Well…to an extent. As I predicted the day before, I still had no desire to hike to the summit. Curtis was doubtful if he wanted to, and debated it the whole 2 miles back to the trail junction. Once there, we sat down to think some more about it. I told him I thought he should do it — he would probably regret it if he didn’t. After sitting there a while longer and considering it, he finally decided to go for it. He emptied my backpack, which is more padded and comfortable to carry, and took only snacks and water, and set off to summit Mauna Loa. For him, this would mean an extra 5 miles on top of an 11 mile day. Thankfully most of the 11 miles would be going downhill. While he was gone, I took off my boots, rolled out a sleeping bag and tried unsuccessfully to sleep again. I was all alone for the entire time he was gone, and though I couldn’t sleep I definitely felt better than I did all night.

Curtis: The last 2.5 miles to the summit were much like the rest of the hike: a slow and steady climb with no end in sight.  As the trail wound around to the West side of the peak, gusts of wind began to buffet and push me.  At least it was pushing me up the hill.  I broke out my phone for the first time of the hike to record my final ascent to the summit, and by doing so I was easily able to keep track of the miles.  After about two miles, the trail returned to the edge of the caldera and I was able to look down into the crater.  The cliffs at this point were several hundred feet high, but I was at a false summit and still had a half mile to go.  The summit itself was pretty much the same but with more knick-knacks and hiker trash stashed in the summit cairn.  I took my picture and pictures of the surrounding area, signed the summit register, and then started back down.  I had told Jess to expect me to take 3 hours and I was pretty spot on with my guess.  At one point, the gusting winds actually caused me to be pushed off the trail, but other than that, the hike back to Jess was uneventful.  As the North Rim of the Caldera came into view I was able to see Jess and my bright orange backpack, and soon enough I was back.  Nothing like a 5 mile hike to warm up for a 9 mile hike.

Jess: Once Curtis returned, he took a short break, then we repacked the bags and set off down the mountain. Here’s where a new problem arose — my shoes started having problems. They had started to come apart on the side seams this past year, and using crampons on Konahuanui certainly didn’t help that, but while going downhill they really started to split. I had to adjust the way I walked to avoid having my feet push too much against the front and cause it to split some more. All I needed was for them to make it down, then up and down Mauna Kea… 30 more miles. Could they make it 30 more miles?

Other than that, our hike down was much better than the hike up. Not just because it’s easier to walk down, but also because the views were much better. We were able to see farther in the distance to where we were heading, and we had the ocean in the distance and Mauna Kea to the North always there, always an incredible sight. But whenever I turned around and saw that endless slope, it was very easy to remember exactly what I was feeling the day before.

We came across one other hiker heading up, an Italian or French man who unfortunately had mistaken the numbers on the map for kilometers rather than miles. We knew that the big group was going to finish the mountain today rather than stay in the Red Hill cabin one last time. Of course, we had gone into this not sure if we wanted to stay a third night, but we were beginning to think it would be better to stay at the cabin. Because Curtis had summited the mountain, he would have to go 16 miles just to make it to Red Hill Cabin. Finishing would have added an additional 7 miles on top of that, then we would have to find an alternate spot to camp.  The only camping site we knew of was a first-come first-served drive-up campsite in the national park that had just 9 spots.

We reached the cabin in the mid-afternoon, and found it occupied by a group of 6. We briefly debated whether to stay here, but decided it’d be good to take a break, and we would still have bunks of our own. Thankfully we didn’t end up regretting this decision. The group consisted of 6 friends that worked together here on the Big Island and were spending a night in the cabin to celebrate Christmas break. They were kind, quiet, and respectful, and played a fun brain game that we picked up on.

When we started talking to them, we learned that they had been hoping to stay in the summit cabin that night instead, but the national park rangers refused to give them permits up there because it was too windy at the summit. Apparently they stopped giving out permits the day after we got ours — which means that if we had decided to delay our hike because of the big group, we wouldn’t have been able to go to the summit either. And that was my reason — my mind could be at peace knowing that there really was a reason for being stuck with the group of college students! We were a little confused though as to why it was considered to be too windy at the summit. I personally never thought it was windy, and Curtis only noted the one spot along his hike to the summit that had bigger wind gusts. Surely this shouldn’t have kept people from being able to stay at the cabin?

Anyway, we settled in for our last night on Mauna Loa, feeling much better than the past 2 days and excited to finally be done with this tomorrow. And for once, I actually was able to sleep!

Continue reading about the last day here: Day 4

Backpacking Mauna Loa Day 2: Red Hill to Mauna Loa Cabin | December 15, 2018

[Read about day 1 here]

This day was quite honestly the hardest of our trip — and one of the hardest hikes we’ve done both mentally and physically. Not because it was dangerous like many trails we’ve taken on Oahu, but because the terrain and the altitude played with our minds the entire time. I cried several times on this day — the first time being when Curtis asked me, “Are you ready?” that morning when we woke up…because I was definitely not ready, and I knew it.

I didn’t sleep much on the porch of Red Hill Cabin. I moved back and forth from side to side to my back, but it wouldn’t be long before I’d grow uncomfortable again. Along with that, it got colder as the night went on and moving around so much caused the cold to creep into my sleeping bag. The group of 12 were all inside the cabin, and they stayed up far later than us talking and it seemed like every 20 minutes someone would come outside to go use the outhouse.

We got up when their alarms started going off at 5. We ate bananas and peanut butter tortillas and packed up all our things, refilled all water containers with filtered water, then left to get a head start on the group. In my head, I was doubting my ability to do this hike. However, I didn’t know what the alternative would be…to stay at Red Hill all day? Going back down meant having to find another place to sleep. I also acknowledged that this trip was possibly our only chance to hike Mauna Kea, and if I couldn’t hike Mauna Loa, how could I hike an even steeper trail up a higher mountain? I kept most of my concerns to myself, though I’m sure Curtis had his own doubts. Instead of focusing on making it to the peak, I focused on making it one more mile. A half mile. Until the next break.

On the plus side, the sunrise that morning was spectacular. This was honestly what I had been looking forward to the most: seeing several sunrises and sunsets from above the clouds. It was a highlight from our Haleakala experience, and it certainly proved to be the best part of this day as well.

Speaking of Haleakala, we started comparing this backpacking trip to that one, as well as our trip to Maui. We weren’t even halfway done with our hike up Mauna Loa, but we already knew that we enjoyed Haleakala much more. Hiking across Haleakala, it seemed like the scenery changed much more and there were more colors, cinder cones, silver swords, and valley views. Here, the majority of the terrain and rocks were black with some dark brown thrown in, and we only came across a couple of cinder cones that were bright orange 2 or 3 times. Overall, the scenery didn’t change. In fact, my favorite views from the whole day (besides the sunrise) were looking across the valley to Mauna Kea, and seeing Haleakala above the clouds in the distance.

I remember when we were hiking Haleakala, coming around a bend and seeing Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa for the first time. We were so eager for the day we’d be there, and now here we were, reminiscing and thinking about how we enjoyed Haleakala so much more.

We finally reached the 11,000 feet sign. Up until this point, the only signs along the trail came after every 1,000 feet of elevation — the trail itself is marked by many, many cairns. However, the stretch between 11 and 12,000 had 2 extra signs that gave the names of the cinder cones we were passing by, and we were quite disappointed to see each of them and realize we were still nowhere near 12,000, or the end.

It was somewhere along that 12 mile stretch where I discovered something about myself: I’m not a volcano/lava rock person. I know several people who would probably have been much more fascinated in the rocks we were walking on and when it would change, signifying a different year of lava flow. I was interested at first, but it got really old after a while. One thing that did catch my attention every time was when we would walk over a rock that sounded like it was hollow underneath. We would occasionally come across giant holes, which was slightly terrifying when I thought about it. Who’s to say that this rock won’t collapse as I’m walking over it? Could it support the 12 people making their way up the mountain a ways behind us?

Eventually, we made it past the 12,000 foot sign — now in the final stretch towards 13,000! At this point, it felt like the trail was playing games with us. The edge of the crater was finally coming into sight — at least we thought so — but the trail was zig-zagging around rather than going in one direction. It wasn’t switchbacking, just meandering around, going past different parts of lava flow. Some was actually pretty cool to see, but after 9 miles of lava…we were ready to be done. We finally reached the edge of the crater…but instead of relief, we were met with more disappointment and were honestly…unimpressed.

Don’t get me wrong, the giant crater is pretty cool. It’s huge, and from where we stood we couldn’t even see the whole thing. We still sat down right where we were to have a snack and take it all in. But on the cost/reward scale, this hike demanded way too much effort to have such a low reward. The real ‘reward’ for this hike was just knowing that we accomplished it.

However, we still weren’t done. This is where the disappointment factor comes into play. From where we were, at the first lookout of the crater above 13,000 feet, we were actually at a trail junction: We could either hike 2.5 miles in one direction to reach the true summit, or we could hike 2 miles in the other direction to reach the cabin. The summit and cabin are only 2 miles apart as the crow flies — across the crater — but nearly 5 miles apart by foot, and there is no other trail that connects them. Therefore, we had a decision to make: Do we try to summit right now, while we still have several hours of daylight, or do we give into our desires to just be done and go straight to the cabin, and save the summit for the next day?

I didn’t want to hike to the summit. Truthfully, I had already made it much farther than I thought I would, and my real goal all along was simply to backpack Mauna Loa — not summit the mountain. However, Curtis is a true peak bagger, in that he actually has to stand at the highest point. I wanted to go with him, but felt so exhausted in this moment that I really had no desire to do it. But I reasoned that I wouldn’t want to any more tomorrow, so after eating we decided to go for it.

As we began, we ran into 3 other hikers coming up from the Mauna Loa Observatory trail (this trail begins on the North side of the mountain, off of the Saddle Road, and is significantly shorter and steeper). We asked them where they were going, and learned that they also were staying in the Mauna Loa Cabin that evening — along with us and the group of 12. Curtis was about to warn them about the large group when they mentioned that they were meeting a group of 12… so now it was a group of 15. Perfect. The group was just making it to the crater at that point, so we hurried along to try to summit before them.

At first, walking the summit trail was flat and easy, and I thought maybe I could actually do this. But then we passed a sign saying that we still had 2 miles to go…and I realized exactly how far we’d have to walk, both up and back and to the cabin. And I just couldn’t get passed that. Curtis saw my disappointment and exhaustion, and immediately said “Let’s just turn around. We can do this tomorrow.” That was all I needed to hear. In that moment, all I wanted was to go straight to the cabin and be there all alone and try to sleep a bit before the big group made it there.

Thankfully the whole group was headed for the summit, which meant if we kept up a good pace to the cabin we could have a few hours to ourselves. For a while, I had thought of the group as being around our age, but somewhere along the trail I had a realization: they were in college, which puts them in the 18-22 year old range…so at the least, I was 4 years older than them. At first this was a devastating discovery, but then I realized that I needed to use this to my advantage: I needed to play the seniority card, and take one of those bunks with the padded mattresses. As their elder, I deserved it.

The cabin trail also started off flat, then eventually began going up in elevation. We passed by some pretty cool lava and some pretty big craters, but it all just blends together. Finally we could see the cabin in the distance, and little by little we drew nearer and nearer until we finally arrived. We didn’t take much time to look around, just entered, claimed some bunks and lay down. There were still several hours of daylight, but the combination of our heavy packs, dehydration, and the altitude were taking their toll on us. We settled in, hoping to get a nap in before everyone else arrived.

While we hadn’t yet made it to the summit, even at the cabin we were at our highest elevation ever hiked at 13,250 feet. The only other hike we’ve done over 13,000 feet was Mount Sniktau in Colorado in 2015.

Continue reading about other days here: Day 3 / Day 4

Backpacking Mauna Loa Day 1: Mauna Loa Trail to Red Hill Cabin | December 14, 2018

If you know us, you know that one of our long term goals is to hike the highest point of every state. Our high pointing adventures have been put on hold for over a year since moving to Hawaii, and we were excited to finally have a chance to conquer Hawaii’s high point, Mauna Kea. However, we knew we wanted to be smart about hiking it. We were coming from sea level on Oahu having only hiked up to 2000 feet recently; Mauna Kea is 13,796 feet above sea level. We knew we needed to spend some time acclimating to higher elevations to avoid altitude sickness.

Enter Mauna Loa: Mauna Loa is just a bit shorter than Mauna Kea at 13,678, but we saw it as a perfect way to acclimate because we could take several days to backpack it and sleep at higher elevations. It also has a longer, more gradual trail to the peak, while Mauna Kea is steeper and shorter.

But the more we looked into hiking Mauna Loa, the more excited we became. While not the highest peak, it is still an ‘ultra’ (a peak with >1500 meters of prominence) and the biggest volcano in the world. We also read trip reports about it, sharing that it isn’t a popular hike, so there seemed like a big chance that we could be alone on the hike. We decided we wanted to hike from the Mauna Loa lookout on the Mauna Loa Trail in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. There are 2 cabins on this trail, so we planned to spend either 3 or 4 days backpacking the peak and staying in the cabins.

After leaving South Point, we drove to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. After stopping briefly in the visitor’s center, we went to the back country office to obtain permits [to learn about the permit process and back country hiking, visit the national park page here]. We hadn’t been able to reserve anything in advance, but weren’t too concerned about that because we were sure this trail wasn’t too popular. We chatted with the park ranger about the hike and checked the forecast and water tank levels. We still weren’t sure at this point whether we wanted to take 3 or 4 days on the mountain, so we got a permit for 4 days just to be safe.

As we were finishing up, he looked and noticed that the cabin would be full tonight, with 12 people already registered to hike. We were a little disappointed to hear that, but didn’t want to alter our plans since our trip was already pretty ambitious for the 6 days we had on the island. However, in hindsight we wish we would’ve asked if it was 12 individual people or several small groups, or one group of 12. As soon as we arrived at the trailhead, we saw the hiking group: a group of 12 college students. Oh boy!

They were finishing packing up, so we waited until they finished and set off on the hike, then began preparing ourselves. It was after 1 in the afternoon, but we only had to hike 7 miles to the first cabin for the night so we weren’t too worried. We just wanted there to be enough distance between the other group so we could hike up in peace.

In our giant backpacks, we brought around 5 liters of water and a filtration set (there are tanks of water at both cabins), and 3 bottles of Gatorade to drink. Food wise, we had 4 cans of soup, 2 packets of Ramen, 10 tortillas, peanut butter, 2 bags of pretzels, and 4 bananas. We had our mess kit and a can of sterno to cook ramen and soup (no campfires are allowed, but even if there were, there isn’t anything to burn up there). We had our sleeping bags and tent just in case, though we hoped we could sleep in the cabins to stay warmer and not have to set up/tear down. We also brought a small game and book, some flashlights, first aid kit, and sunscreen — very important on such an exposed hike. One thing we wish we would’ve had was chapstick.

Finally, we began our hike: 7 miles from the trailhead to Red Hill Cabin. We began our trek just below 7,000 feet and ended at 10,000 feet above sea level. The slope isn’t bad at all, just a slow and steady elevation gain for most of the way. While it isn’t that hard, we still took breaks to make sure we were hydrating and adjusting well to the change in elevation. The trail varies between a dirt path and walking on different types of lava rock. It was interesting to see how the color or type of rock could all change abruptly depending on which lava flow it came from. We started out with trees and plants which thinned out as we rose in elevation, and by the time we reached 10,000 there were hardly any living things in sight.

From where we began, we were already above the clouds and able to look down South behind us and see steam rising from Kilauea in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, as well as other craters, and the big wide blue ocean.

Ahead of us, however, was what seemed like an endless slope. Because of the long, gradual elevation gain, we were hardly ever able to see more than half a mile ahead of us. It didn’t take long before this became more discouraging than exciting. No matter how far we walked, the view didn’t really change, and it never seemed like we were getting any closer. Every so often though, we would catch a glimpse of Mauna Loa in the distance…and no matter how close we got, it always looked so, so far away. Little did we know, this would become the story of our hike.

We finally got a glimpse of Red Hill ahead of us in the distance, and maybe an hour later we arrived just as the sun was setting. We were approaching the cabin when we got our first good look at Mauna Kea to the North, and our jaws dropped — it was lit up in purple light with a pastel sky around it. It didn’t matter that I had just walked 7 miles up to 10,000 feet — I dropped my backpack and ran to get a better look. We took some pictures and relished the beauty. This was truly perfect timing and a great reward for all our effort that afternoon.

Of course, we also met our new 12 neighbors that were also staying at the cabin. The cabin has 8 bunks with mattress pads, so clearly not everyone would get one, so we settled for sleeping on the large porch outside. While the wood floor wasn’t comfortable at all, it had walls blocking the wind and just being next to the warm cabin filled with people was enough to get us out of the cold. And I do mean cold — I have no idea what the actual temperatures were, but I am positive that they were the coldest that we had felt since at least Haleakala, and even colder — I don’t remember the last time we had experienced that! I suppose the elevation wasn’t the only thing we needed to acclimate to!

Continue reading about the other days here: Day 2 / Day 3 / Day 4