Our good friends Sammy & Brian (Sammy is a talented video professional, model, and actor [watch him in the lead of “HAIR” at the Theatre On The Square] in his own right) recently visited us from their San Francisco home. They’re the hardcore outdoorsy types - competing in triatholons, soccer tournaments, etc. While on the Big Island, they did that night-time hike-from-hell to the current flow way past Kalāpana, where this incredible image what shot.
Sammy tells us “…walking out to the volcano was utterly breathtaking. The first thing we were startled by is a young man and his brother leaping over the lava rock. As the approached we noticed one was bleeding from the knee, he advised us to be careful. We had our flashlight and water as well as jeans so we weren’t too worried. But having that visual was a nice reminder that we basically were walking on shards of glass. It took us about an hour to get really close to the lava- about as close as we felt safe, which was still a hundred or so feet away. Plumes of methane shot from random holes and the surface we walked on seemed to change it’s feel- kind of like it was hollow underneath.The heat would randomly arise from cracks in the surface, which was also unsettling.
As the sun disappeared the embers of the volcano quickly illuminated the shore. We could hear crackling as the magma entered the ocean. It was like being at the edge of the earth and watching the world create itself all over. Truly remarkable.”