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  3. TRAVEL: 2007 through 2011
  4. Hawaii, February and March, 2009

Big Island #2: SACRED HEIGHTS FOR THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE AND SACRED COASTAL REFUGE

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The Visitor Center is to your left. Our tour guide is getting our pre-packaged meals and handing them out. Choice of chicken or beef. As you can see, there is a bit of fog around. We are on a saddle where there is nearly always an inversion zone, which varies a bit in elevation (rising in the daytime, lowering at night). This inversion zone pretty much guarantees that the summit will rarely be visible from the base. It also kind of acts as a "trap" for moisture, which tends to form in this fog layer, leaving it clear above. At the summit, it is supposedly clear at least 300 days per year.
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The Visitor Center is to your left. Our tour guide is getting our pre-packaged meals and handing them out. Choice of chicken or beef. As you can see, there is a bit of fog around. We are on a saddle where there is nearly always an inversion zone, which varies a bit in elevation (rising in the daytime, lowering at night). This inversion zone pretty much guarantees that the summit will rarely be visible from the base. It also kind of acts as a "trap" for moisture, which tends to form in this fog layer, leaving it clear above. At the summit, it is supposedly clear at least 300 days per year.

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  • Now y'all know how I'm one who tends to like odd things, right? I mean, hordes of folks converge on Hawaii to soak up the sun on the beaches and to snorkel, dive, and otherwise enjoy the sun, sand, and water. Me....hey, the first thing I thought about doing when I knew I was going to Hawaii was to experience the Hawaiian snow! I guess I've always been sort of a mountain type of a guy, and I LIVE on the ocean, so heading up to the snow line on Hawaii really appealed to me. Here we are on a nicely-equipped, very comfortable mini-bus run by Mauna Kea Summit Adventures. We are just north of Kailua-Kona. The white letters you see are a part of what some call "the most eco-friendly vandalism on Earth." Locals gather coral rocks down by the water and lug them up here to the gray and black lava to spell out slogans and love messages in a unique kind of graffiti. In a couple of hours, we will actually be up at snow line on Mauna Kea!
  • The west coast of Kona, as you could see in the previous photo, is very dry. Average annual precipitation is about 11 inches. We are headed toward Hilo, which is one of the wetter areas around, averaging 126 inches per year (we won't make it to Hilo in this album, but will later). As you climb up the saddle from Kona toward Hilo, you encounter ever greener terrain (until you get up to the alpine zone). The summit of Mauna Kea, which is where we are headed on this journey, gets about 19 inches of precipitation per year.
  • As we head up toward the summit, the bus stops at Onizuka Center for International Astonomy Visitor Information Station. We were pretty much at sea level a couple of hours ago. Now we are at 9,200 feet. Use of parkas, such as the one you see Bev modeling here, is included in the fee for the tour. Supposedly, spending an hour or so here decreases the chances of developing serious problems with the altitude on the summit (which is nearly 14,000 feet). By the way, Dad: This is where your cap came from.
  • The Visitor Center is to your left. Our tour guide is getting our pre-packaged meals and handing them out. Choice of chicken or beef. As you can see, there is a bit of fog around. We are on a saddle where there is nearly always an inversion zone, which varies a bit in elevation (rising in the daytime, lowering at night). This inversion zone pretty much guarantees that the summit will rarely be visible from the base. It also kind of acts as a "trap" for moisture, which tends to form in this fog layer, leaving it clear above. At the summit, it is supposedly clear at least 300 days per year.
  • Chicken to your right, beef to your left. Yep, that's a brownie you see wrapped in plastic wrap next to the beef box. And, as you can see, you get real silverware to access the goodies in your cardboard box. Several tour companies come up here, so the Visitor Center becomes quite busy, indeed.
  • Now, I didn't see any invisible cows, but I guess that's sort of like the bald man never parting with his comb....<br /> <br /> I've never seen an invisible cow.<br /> I never hope to see one.<br /> But this I tell you right now:<br /> I'd rather see than be one!<br /> (My apologies to Gelett Burgess).
  • You are encouraged to spend a little (very little) time walking around on some trails while at the Visitor Center.
  • Mauna Kea Silversword (Argyroxiphium sandwicense spp. sandwicense) used to be numerous here. However, in the 1700's goats and sheep were introduced to this area, and they apparently found this plant to be quite tasty. That, plus the fact that an individual plant grows for 50 years and then flowers and produces seeds once before it dies, resulted in decimation of the population nearly to extinction. Now there are protection and propagation programs under way, but the success is far from a certainty. I guess it's pretty difficult to teach the goats to read the "Please Do Not Eat" signs.
  • If you would like to learn more about the Visitor Information Station, click on the following: <a href="http://ifa.hawaii.edu/info/vis/">http://ifa.hawaii.edu/info/vis/</a>
  • After our meal, a little walk, a little shopping, and hopefully adequate acclamation, we board the bus for our ascent up to the summit. It's a fairly steep and winding road. It's starting to look like we will have a nice, clear sky at sunset!
  • This is the head of the largest knight's armor ever made. OK, not really. Actually, this is the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO). Submillimeter rays are between infrared and radio waves, so this observatory does not deal with light visible to our eyes. However, light of these wavelengths is given off primarily by cool dust and gases. Click <a href="http://www.submm.caltech.edu/cso/">http://www.submm.caltech.edu/cso/</a> to learn more about this observatory, including a photo of what it looks like when the hatch is open, and how it recently detected "triply deuterated ammonia" in a cloud 1,000 lightyears from Earth. How it did that, and just what triply deuterated ammonia is, I'm not sure, but it sounds pretty cool.
  • We are still parked at the CSO. You can see some of the other observatories (more on these later) dotting the landscape. The total cost of all the observatories up here is substantially more than one BILLION dollars. And it's all on a volcano which geologists say is likely to erupt at least one more time before it becomes extinct. Of course, that could be tomorrow, or could be 1,000 years from now. We all agreed that we would prefer for it to not be this night.
  • The CANADA-FRANCE-HAWAII TELESCOPE (CFHT) looks at visible and infrared light. When it first started operating (in 1979), its 12 foot mirror was the 6th largest in the world. Of course, many have since been built with much larger mirrors. However, the CFHT has continued to provide cutting-edge images, due to the addition (in 2003) of the MegaCam camera. You say you want your next digital camera to have lots of megapixels? Well, the MegaCam has 340 megapixels! Imagine the detail you could capture with THAT puppy! Oh, the main DISadvantage of having a camera like that (for folks like you and me): EACH shot requires about 700 megabytes of storage (so an entire CD could hold only ONE shot!). Also, I'm sure that PhotoShop would crawl along pretty slowly on my computer if working on such images.
  • You are looking east, away from the setting sun. On the clouds you see the great shadow of Mauna Kea. You also see several cinder cones, which form when pockets of hot gases under great pressure, trapped during the primary eruptions of Mauna Kea, worked their way to the surface to explode into the atmosphere. Notice how that inversion layer I mentioned earlier traps the moisture well beneath the summit. This is one of the reasons why Mauna Kea is considered to be THE best place in the world for astronomical observations: Not only is it nearly always clear from the summit on up, but the cloud layer also shields the summit from light pollution from populated areas below. It is difficult to believe that lights in Kona or Hilo, a couple of hours drive away, could make for significant light pollution up here. But supposedly for these extremely sensitive telescopes they can.
  • Pretty much the same view, but with me out of the way. It was awesome and humbling to watch that great shadow slowly proceed toward the horizon. By the way, we are now at an elevation of 13,793 feet. My old sea-level adapted lungs and blood were definitely NOT ready to run any marathon! In fact, I hate to admit how much of a challenge it was to just climb back into the bus!
  • We are looking south now, with the sun going down to our right. The closest observatory is the Frederick C. Gillett Gemini Telescope (Gemini North). More on it later. Next is the University of Hawaii 2.2 Meter Telescope ( <a href="http://ifa.hawaii.edu/88inch/">http://ifa.hawaii.edu/88inch/</a> ), which was the first large observatory built up here (in 1970). Its 88 inch (7 1/3 feet) mirror is about the same size as is that of the Hubble Telescope. It observes light in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared regions. The last one you can see is the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT). It's mirror, at 12.5 feet, is the world's largest dedicated solely to infrared astronomy ( <a href="http://outreach.jach.hawaii.edu/articles/aboutukirt/">http://outreach.jach.hawaii.edu/articles/aboutukirt/</a> ).
  • As most of you probably know, Gemini refers to "the twins." That, along with the fact that they named this one "Gemini North," is a strong indication that there may be another similar one someplace. Indeed there is, Gemini South (now who would ever guess that?), which is a far bit to walk: It is located in central Chile. The locations give the Gemini twins access to the entire night sky. It is owned by the National Science Foundation and the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. I wonder what kind of food they serve at their board meetings! This looks at visible and infrared light with a mirror of 26.5 feet diameter. For more, including links to some spectacular images taken by Gemini North, see <a href="http://www.gemini.edu/">http://www.gemini.edu/</a> . Now, notice the "compact" appearance of the Gemini observatory. They keep these "buildings" closed and air-conditioned during the day, in an attempt to keep them at the temperature the outside air will be at night. As you will see later, when they open up the hatches to direct the 'scopes, vents also open to allow even cooling throughout the structure.
  • Hawaiian snow in the reddish light of the setting sun in the foreground. Poli'ahu, the cinder cone to your left, is considered to be both the embodiment of and the home of Poli'ahu, the snow goddess. The observatories, from left to right, are as follows: Subaru ( <a href="http://subarutelescope.org/">http://subarutelescope.org/</a> ), Japan's national telescope. At 26.9 feet in diameter, its mirror is one of the largest single-piece telescope mirrors made. It took three years to manufacture the blank, and another four years to polish it and prepare it for mounting. The unusual shape was chosen because computer simulations indicated that it would reduce the amount of turbulent outside air entering the enclosure. The central two domes are the Keck 1 and Keck 2 ( <a href="http://keckobservatory.org/">http://keckobservatory.org/</a> ). With mirrors of 33 feet in diameter, these are the largest visible light (and infrared) telescopes in the world. Unlike the Subaru, however, these mirrors are each made up of 36 hexagonal segments, with each of these individually controlled to keep alignment within 4 nanometers (about 1/25,000 the thickness of a human hair). When used together, resolution can be equivalent to what would be possible with a mirror 279 feet in diameter! Each of the 700,000 cubic foot domes stands 8 stories tall. The smaller one to your right is the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (NASA IRTF) ( <a href="http://irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu/">http://irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu/</a> ). It has a 10 foot diameter mirror and is used primarily to gather information of use to NASA space programs.
  • Self portrait, as reflected in the glass of the Mauna Kea Summit Adventures mini-bus.
  • Our guide. He did tell me that he had never seen anyone photograph the windows of the bus before. Guess I reminded you in the caption of the first photo of this album that I like rather odd things, and that definitely applies to photos!
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