Lava on Da Big Island

Yesterday I found out that the lava was flowing much closer to the end of the road than usual, so we went to check it out. We found molten lava just 50-60 yards away, oozing slowly toward us. Blow the pic up and you can see the pahoehoe on the right.

The lava advances thru forests, occasionally setting a tree alight. This flow is moving on top of a 1990 flow that buried much of the historic village of Kalapana. This is the closest I've gotten to molten lava out of over half a dozen visits to the Big Island.

Here The Conster is posing on the slopes of Pu'u Huluhulu, a volcanic cone about 500 years old that is now covered with lush rain forest. In the background is Mauna Ulu, a much newer crater that spit out massive amounts of lava from 1969 to 1974 that went over the cliffs clear to the ocean a good 10 miles beyond.