Hawaii Up High
Having conveniently forgotten to read his rental car agreement, Dave made 2 trips up the Saddle Road (between Mauna Kea & Mauna Loa) to ascend13,600' Mauna Kea.
On the first trip, Doris and Bruce joined me for a trip to the 9500' visitor center (as high as one should go with kids). Here, we stopped on the way back down to look across the 6500ft valley floor (filled with clouds) at Mauna Loa. Yes, folks, that is a tiny bit of snow on the top!
We also discovered the source of the mysterious "pops" we heard as we labored up to the top. Right about the time when I had to floor the truck just to do 25mph, it seems we hit the magic altitude where Frito-Lay chip bags explode!
Sunset at the top consisted of blowing clouds and darkness, though we did see signs of skiing among the telescope buildings, so we headed down, catching this amazing view of the sunset just as we descended under the clouds.
Needless to say, the video version of this event shows things a bit differently, with 100+ tourists mulling around this site and Bert nearly taking a tumble off that mound of unstable rocks.
Last updated 15 March 2002.