06/19/2026
I was temporarily unable to access our page but wanted to show off photos from our last trip the first week of June!
We landed in Kona on a Sunday night knowing Kilauea was stirring. I woke up on June 1st at 6:30 am and immediately looked at HVNP and Episode 48 had been fountaining for just over 2 hours! We have missed a lot of episodes by 1 or 2 days and I wasn’t going to miss this. I was so excited I jumped in the car and hit the road.
IYKYK that it can start and stop at any given time, so I was scrambling. I pulled into HVNP around 9:15 am and was able to drive right in. I bypassed a lot of vehicles knowing I wanted to get to the Kilauea Overlook. Oh man…. It was one of the most spectacular sites I have ever witnessed in my life 🥲 600-700 ft tall and over 50,000 gallons of lava a second.
In my first photos it was just lightly sprinkling so I was able to capture that brilliant orange, no filters. 5 minutes later the rain moved in and it was cloudy and dampened the bright glow. I’m glad I got to see it both ways. The only way to describe it is that is sounded like a jet engine and boiling water. I don’t know that I could feel the ground trembling or anything but I could feel the sound.
I wish I could have silenced the talking and walking on the tephra but unfortunately I wasn’t the only one there. I forgot to take a sweatshirt or any rain gear so after an hour I was soaked and cold. Sure enough there were a line of cars waiting to get into the park. I just had that quick thought that if you were in line to get in and it stopped how disappointing that would be to know you were so close!!
Shawn had to work in Waimea that morning so he unfortunately missed it all. It fountained for just over 9 hours. Since then Episode 49 has happened. I hope one day you are on the Big Island and are lucky enough to experience Kilauea! Message for our condo information.
