Late Autumn 2019 my friends unexpectedly canceled our group’s anticipated road trip from Halifax to Ottawa, Canada and changed to Hawaii instead with dubious reason that they wanted surf, sun and sea instead of ocean of fossil and autumn foliage. At first, I was not happy since I planned to see those uninspired Eastern Canadian UNESCO sites, but Hawaii was indeed hard to resist. To accommodate me, Volcanoes National Park was one of the must stop of this trip. Before I visited Hawaii, I already noted that after great eruption in 2018, almost all volcanic activities that made this national park well known were no more. As of late 2019 no lava flow, no eruption, no fume, no smoke and we were wondered that with no volcanic activities, our visit will be worthwhile of not?

When we reached the visitor center of the national park, there was a big sign informed us that almost half of the national park was still closed and no lava to be seen, a lot of visitors seem to be disappointed and complained with park rangers for misinformation in many guidebooks and tourist brochures. Our group decided to do some tracking to see Sulphur bank and volcano crater. The tracking trail was nice, but the Sulphur bank was underwhelmed, since all of us already visited Yellowstone National Park, the trail and the sulfuric smell in Hawaii were nothing special. The crater on the other hand was really impressive for its size, but again with no lava or fume, it was just a gigantic hole similar to large copper mine! Nevertheless, the view of Mauna Loa was quite lovely. Our group had no regret to not be able to see the lava tube as we already saw similar natural wonder on Jeju, South Korea and to be honest we did not trust the structural safety. The most memorable part of the visit was driving on the famous Chain of the Craters Road; the view was indeed really impressive of vast deserted land done by many lava flows. At the end of the road was the iconic and beautiful Holei Sea Arch and lava cliff. The overall surrounding gave the feeling of what landscape of world’s end should be.     

With no active volcanic activities, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park was just another volcanoes landscape that can be found around the globe. But combined it with other places on Big Island, the national park is still a fine place to visit. There are few places on earth that have so diverse landscape, and many different climates zone like this Hawaii Island, together with many ancient Hawaiian cultural sites, the whole island should be World Heritage Site in my opinion.