In times past Iʻd go bake at Puakō (thanks, vt) or hike in to Maniniʻōwali for the day. No more. Now, I go walk to Keanakākoʻi (KKOI) in whatever weathers are out there. The only limit is when trades are more than 18 or 20mph. Then I maybe do a couple half-way roundtrips. The rest of the route, out of the forest, is too exposed and way too windy past 20mph. Even with a walking stick, stumbles happen. So we deal with what we need to deal with to avoid injury.
And when past injuries cause us to behave irrationally, we must deal with that too. Iʻve had two concussions. First one I slipped on the front steps and took a foreheader on a nice big rock on the ground. Complete postconcussion amnesia for 45 minutes, then in and out for several hours. Second time was slipping on the floor with wet feet and whacking the back of my head. Not as bad, but pretty sure it added to brain damage.
Recently, over a couple of days, all that caused me to be irrational in listening, understanding, and re-telling information. It created a situation requiring explanation, apologies, thinking, assessing, and coming up with A Plan to deal with deficits in my processing. You know, when weʻre young and carefree, itʻs all good. Then we get up there and we REALLY need to be diligent and pay attention. To all sorts of things. And we do, and carry on, praying for grace and attentiveness and forgiveness and...
Then we look at clouds. The vogless skies are a marvel. Like seeing newly remodeled Kaluapele and trying to learn her layers and patterns and colors. And hoping that they all register and stick. Skies over Hawaiʻi nei are BLUE. And the clouds, most of them, are WHITE. And because the skies are so blue, the ocean is bluer too. Itʻs been decades...
Joni Mitchell, a favorite, wrote "Both Sides Now" in March 1967. A half-century (yikes!) ago. That line "Iʻve looked at clouds that way" seems to be so apropos these days. Iʻm especially enamoured of The Cloud that sits over the Lua. It changes always, seemingly dissipating on a whim, then re-forming, but simply floats there.
I walked two times this past Saturday. First in the morning, 730 or 8ish. Had kona breezes, and the air was hauna with hydrogen sulfide. The REALLY stink air. Below, you can see the fume rising out of the pit just below The Cloud. This photo was at 823a. Then the winds shifted, and trades returned.
The Cloud disappeared for a bit, then re-formed.
First, just a bit of a wisp (right there in the middle) at 847a:
Then kinda flattish at 904a:
Then rounder and fatter at 906a:
And the last pic at 911a:
The spherical ones remind me of the old-fashioned malasadas I make. Generally ball-like, but misshapen, with odd lumps and squiggly tails.
Went back at noonish with long-time friends visiting from Maui, and skies were mostly overcast, though you could still pick out The Cloud. Iʻm hoping that someone somewhere will come up with an appropriate name for it. Something related to the exhalation of fumes vapors steams at the Lua. The cause is volcanic, and it forms and just sits there. Lucky us.
After the p.m. walk, we went to Volcano House for snacks and beverages. ʻOno was. And the mists rolled in, and the light kept changing, and the floor of the main part of the Lua glistened, and there on the right-hand wall, I saw Kalupe, complete with tail. What a cool thing! From that angle, everything made sense. At least to me.
So. Lupe = kite or sting ray. Hīhīmanu is the same. Sting ray. Hāhālua is the manta ray.
Theodore Kelsey noted the location of "Pohaku Lupe (Kite Stone)" at the bottom of his sketch. Note that he drew Halemaʻumaʻu on the wrong side of "Kilauea Nui". A bit of dyslexia perhaps?
Mr Kelsey recorded a lot of information on this sheet of paper. And as things are, his informant places "ʻa-kani-kolea" on a different part of the wall than does another informant. More about that in a future post.
OK. Bob, back to the topic: Kalupe...
Kalupe, in scientific circles is known as the Uēkāhuna Laccolith. Itʻs an intrusive body that cooled slowly, and so is made of very dense grey rock. Magma intruded under the summit, didnʻt erupt, and stayed put and cooled. We had seen and admired Kalupe for years and years. And then we had 62 lūʻōniu, those collapse explosions, and tens of thousands of ʻōlaʻi (earthquakes) during The Three Months. All that shaking peeled off vast sections of the wall of Kaluapele, exposing unweathered faces. Amongst those freshly exposed layers is what I believe to be the tail and stinger of Kalupe. Viewing it from Volcano House: Wow! Look at that! Of course! Sometimes it takes awhile for everything to click.
ABOVE: Kalupe is that pale grey shape just to left of left of center, at the base of Palikapuokamohoaliʻi, that section of the caldera wall seen above. Note HVO on the rim at the left edge.
BELOW: An extremely crude outline. The main body of Kalupe at the left, then its tail (the core of an ʻaʻā flow or a layer of dense lava), and the stinger, (a trapezoidal bit of grey dense rock). That bent ʻōhiʻa points to the stinger. And the slope of Maunakea is to the right.
As always, with aloha,
BobbyC
maniniowali@gmail.com
