Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1899-09-14

!
summit TO the sea, and even the sum
nit is a part of that long, fat curve
Without prominent feaures Nauna
/ kea never lo~es its SHOWS: Mauna
! | - rarely hes enough snow. even al
! tie same height, to be visible down be-
! low. Some freak Of the winds dis
! charges the air of its moisture before
| it reaches the freezing attitudes The
same insignifcance continues at higher
| points Of view. At the Volcano house,
on tie brink Of the Kilauea crater.
| Mauna LOa rises 10000 fee within %
miles. yet the slope is so gradual nd
! so devoid Of the markings of valley de-
| pressions that the massive mountain
| continues to seem no more than hill.
At the very top of that hill is the crater
| Of Mokuaweoweo, and it is a long and
weary climb before the mountaineer
car stand on the brink and look down
into the incandescent lava.
The few travellers who have M
proved the infrequent opportunity to
see Mokuaweoweo in activity and have
essayed the climb have generally
started from the Volcano house,
whence the trip to the summit may be
made in two days. Lately a German
Alpinist has assembled the mountain on
its shorter western slope and proved
the practicability of riding to the last
stretch of the slope. This route will
if the present eruption does not put a
new face on that side of the mountain.
Starting from the Volcano house the
trail winds at the edge OF the timber
1t is high enough for the air to be
chilly and Unfavorable for much vege-
tation, and the lava is too new to afford
more than the smallest pockets of thin
soil in which scanty ferns may sprout
and play their part in adding humus to
prepare for stuTdier growths At the
timber line there is nothing but fern
and Ohelo berries, the sweet and hardy
fruit which the old myths consecrated
to Pele as the goddess of the fires Of the
mountain. For few miles the trail.
not to be distinguished by eyes less
keen than those of one of the very few
Hawaiians competent to serve as a
guide on this infrequent exploration
continues at the edge of the timber
such as it is. After leaving this poor
shelter there is nowhere enough shade
to cover a mouse. Even the grass van
ishes. Only here and there is it pos
sible to find a few stunted spears
pocketed away in chinks and crannies
where a teaspoonfu1 of Lava dust has
found a refuge from the searching
wind. The thin air seems like a
ragged screen, the sun comes nearer
and scorches the skin with a more than
July fervor, while the body is SILVER
ing in more than December frost 1t
is the first hardship of this trip; it is
also the last to pass away. It would
be hard to devise a more severe trial
for the skin than to be scorched and
baked by fervid sun rays and in an in
slant to be wrapped in a wet blanket
as a cloud descends and rests on the
mountain, often to the complete OBJ
scuration of the trail
There is only one relief to the waste
of lava. No ferns grow on these
higher slopes; the ohelo berry has
given up the hard struggle; but one
plant is hardy enough to bear the
frost, the sweep of the wind, the dearth
Of soil. 1t seems to grow on the bare
lava flow; it raises its flower spike like
a guide post in the waste; it has a
cluster of leaves that glisten like
water falling over rocks. This is the
silver sword. It is as much the noun
taineer's flower in Hawaii as the edel-
weiss in Switzerland. It grows only
at the high levels, and to come back
with a bunch of its silvery leaves
means mountain climbing and rock
scrambling. The silver sword is a lily
with incOrsnicuoUs flowers, all its
beauty beinG in the long slender leaves,
which are like frosted silver, and as
they dry become ribbons so light that
the merest puff sets them floating like
gossamer.
The trail is hard and rough. There
is the choice of one lava or the other,
and one is passable only through com
parison with the other, which is so
much worse. When the clouds lift and
it is possible to examine the prospect,
the guide points out dark streaks on
the mountain slopes and gives the his
tory of each so far as it is known, for
these are the tracks of former eruD-
tions. All this lava rests On the slopes
of the mountain. The slopes are COM
posed apparently, for the most part, of
upheaved material thrust up by the
lifting force OF the volcanic powers, and
there is some elected material on the
upper slopes. On these slopes the
melted lava, breaking out al some
weak spot in the mountain side, has
flowed like torrent and also like n
torrent has run down hill along the
lines of the least resistance. These
lava rivers have cooled in two forms Of
widely varying appearance. One is
smooth as to it's surface twisted in
places like rope and presenting many
queer shapes at the edge Of the stream
This is the pahoehoe, a Hawaiian name
which seems to have been taken up by
the biologists to describe similar lava
wherever found The other form, the
"a lava, is an indiscriminate heap Of
angular blocks thrown round so that it
is rarely possible to make a path
across such a field. The pahoe- Zoe
| crackles under foot as though one were
walking on sugar, but a field of "a will
cut the shoes Of a man or the 1noofs Of
cattle in very short order. It is not
unusual to find wild scrub cattle fright
fully mutilated through being lost in
this lava
In the ascent of Mauna Lea it is pos