Mauna Kea Island of Hawaii

Today we are taking the KapohoKine Volcano Lava Combo tour that circles the Big Island. It's a fairly small group, our family and two others. The tour guide is explains that the Big Island has all but two of the 13 climate zones in the world (missing the Artic and Saharan climate zones). It's incredible to think that such a small island in the …

Sam and I started out the morning by snorkeling at a nearby beach. No keys were locked in the car this time. It was a nice morning, but the waters were a bit murky for snorkeling.

After snorkeling, we walked through a small cat refuge by the beach. A tourist through some crackers for nearby birds, this prompted an interesting spectacle. …

... all sorts of things to play with and try to understand.  And there are a number - I think 23?  telescopes set up on Mauna Kea at 14000 feet elevation.  I want to try to get up there to check them out...haven't figured out exactly how to ...

... the most interesting astronomy talk I've ever heard.   And I do ask him about the Atacama desert vs. Mauna Kea conflict...conflicting claims of "bestness"....he still feels like Mauna Kea's the true best in that overall there are more hours of ...

... , 9 of them are represented right here on this singular island.  Lots of variability.  Snow on the highest parts of Mauna Kea, to the grasslands in the central region, to the tropics down below.  If you drive twenty miles, you're probably ...

... a pass over Rainbow Falls and the Boiling Pots.  The latter two features are not volcanoes but part of a the Wailuku River system flowing down from Mauna Kea over lava ravines.  They are beautiful, of course!  In fact, the river at the ...

... . Odtial to bolo uz len strmo do kopca. Dalsia zastavka uz bola v 3000 metroch, kde byvaju operatori dalekohladov umiestnenych na Mauna Kea. Odtial pokracuje uz len prasna cesta na vrchol. Po asi 20 minutach sme sa poriadne udrmacani dostali pod vrchol, ...

... be cloudy in the afternoon, one can just drive 10 miles north to hit endless sunshine and beaches.  The center of the mountain which is home to Mauna Kea (13,796ft above sea level) gets cool and has snow during winter, then as you move across to the ...

Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa are two of the five volcanoes that make up the Big Island of Hawaii, and are the tallest in the state at 13,796 and 13,677 ft respectively.  In fact, when measured from its base on the sea floor (which is considerably ...

We got up really early this morning to another drizzly day in Honolulu.  We had a 9:00 AM flight over to the Big Island of Hawaii to finish off our trip.  We said goodbye to our Sebring and headed to the airport.  The flight was SUPER ...

... sure we could see it all. We took the cross island road as a short cut which runs up between the two flanks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, so there was some huge elevation gain (we took the same road last night for the observatory trip).  The morning ...

... rain and is a desert but the other side is lush and green. Tomorrow we get to sleep late and go to the top of Mauna Kea (the tallest volcano in the world and depending on how you measure it, the tallest mountain too) for an observatory visit to see ...