Significant changes on the 61G flow field on March 8, 2018… still a number of small breakouts on the Pali this morning… but a very large flow was discovered within about a half-mile of the Pu’u ‘O’o vent. Huge plates of hardened pahoehoe lava floated on a river of lava snaking its way several hundred yards downslope. Spectacular! Raggedy Ann Ducky joined Leilani, Bruce Omori and me as Paradise Helicopters’ outstanding pilot, Sean Regehr flew us stealthily over the hot liquid rock… mahalo Sean!
And some pictures:
My really cool and adventurous totally righteous DAD! Took me to the Big Island in July of 1986, we drove out to where the lava flows had recently moved over one of the two lane major roads. It was just like a real life movie studio set with half melted stop signs and cars and trees. This is where I learned my lesson to listen to my pops more, at the time I was a silly kid that liked hiking all over the place. So I went into checking and rechecking the top part of the lava flows to see if it was safe to walk on. I used wooden sticks to see if they were singed and then my shoes and last my hands. No heat coming off the lava flows at the road so I climbed up on to it. And started to walk all around the lava flow near the road, going over to the half melted bent over stop sign then throwing around tree branches and jumping up and down to break chunks of the new lava rocks to throw at the lava flows. Next Dad took some photos of us and the lava flows, Then I started to move farther up the lava flows to see the extent of the size and conditions of other things surrounded by the lava flows. I did not realize how far I had gone away from my pops, I was now walking higher up on the 6ft. To 10ft. tall lava flows. Then I started to jump and jog across the flows , when all of the sudden there was a round topped cooled lava flow rock raised bubble. WHAM!!!! ONE OF MY LEGS FELL THROUGH THE THIN LAVA CRUST, RELEASING A BLAST OF VERY HOT AIR UP INTO THE REST OF MY BODY? ??!!!!! It was difficult to get my leg out of the hole I had just made, scuffed up my knee on the sharp edges of the hole. As this was happening I could hear my Dad shouting for me to come back to him we had lost sight of each other. I did get out and then rested up my stamina for like five minutes, Then slowly shifting my weight with my legs started to move again. I then decided to go up to a very high spot and barely could see my dad.Then I scanned the lava flows to see the shortest way in distance to get off of the flows and onto normal ground to get back as quick as possible. Trying out that route caused me to slip off the flows into a normal ground pocket . Hard to climb back up onto the lava flow, when I did I rested again but when I moved my feet I started slipping a lot with my shoes? ??? Stopped moving my feet to figure out what’s going on ? Then I feel heat at the bottom of my shoes, lift up one of my legs to check the bottom of my shoes. THE LAVA FLOW IS STILL SO HOT ITS MELTING AWAY MY SHOES AND HURTING MY FEET. I RAN LIKE A ROCKET KID SLIPPING AND SLIDING ALL OVER THE PLACE FOR ABOUT 55 FEET AND JUMPED OFF THE FLOW. onto normal ground I was panicking moderately ran back to Dad gave him a BIG HUG. He scolded me a little especially when he saw the Brand new holes burned into my shoes. I received my first new pair of shoes from Hawaii! ! 😉 😀
Hm, Not bad .