Loading ...…and I’m glad to see it go. The volcano has cooled, and I’m guessing the economy will cool in the coming year also.
Took a ride east of Kalapana on Hwy 137. The county has opened the road as gravel across three 30-ft high fingers of jumbled, broken rock A’a lava between MacKenzie State park and the boat ramp at Pohoiki now. Pohoiki bay now has a huge black sand berm and beach that has engulfed the boat ramp, leaving it landlocked. The black sand forms when lava enters the ocean and fractures to sandy bits. The shoreline ocean currents carried it down the shoreline to fill in the bay and boat ramp. This is the view of the NAV marker at the end of the breakwater… now embedded in sand. You can see the isolated pond and boat dock behind the berm. Where I am standing was once open water of the bay.
In that hole in the trees just left of center you can see the black line of lava that is 30 ft high. The lava came from Kapoho down the shoreline as far as the edge of this park and stopped here. Just the other side of the trees is lava for several miles to the NE.