Kilauea’s Hot Summit

It used to be that you had to go to the end of the winding Chain of Craters road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park if you wanted to get a look at hot melted planet. I’ve never done it—once the road was closed due to excessive volcanic activity, and once there wasn’t time and once ... Oh, my excuses are endless.

But if you’re on the Big Island right now, you don’t have to make that trip. According to the L.A. Times, Kilauea is “glowing brightly as molten lava swirls 300 feet below its crater’s floor, bubbling near the surface after years of spewing from the volcano’s side.”

Especially awesome about this new activity? You can see it right from the Jagger Museum in the park. From a park press release, “The overlook is open 24 hours a day. Starting Friday, June 5th, rangers will be on duty and the museum will stay open until 8:00 pm.”

You can’t hike down there—the trails are closed because of vog and hey, it’s an active volcano, people!—but bring your binoculars and that long telephoto lens to get a closer look. I’d tell you to hurry up so you don’t miss this amazing sight, but when you’re talking about geology, that could mean go now, or sometime in the next decade, or sometime in the next century. Up to you.

And if you’d like some vintage footage of Kilauea doing her thing back in 1959, there’s a four part series produced by the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service on YouTube. Sweeping sound track! Blazing plumes of lava! Brave scientists stepping out on the thin crust of the earth! Here’s part one, for your educational pleasure.

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