A Winter Volcano Ascent on a Remote Tropical Island.
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Tropical volcanos are never easy, but we managed to bag an ascent of massive & massively rotten Mt. Pu'u Ola'i. Our first ascent of 2020! We climbed it "old style" by hiking in & finding our way to its summit without benefit of topos, GPS, Cell Phones, Internet climbing blog sites, or a decent map.
After reaching our tropical island on Jan. 5th, 2020, the next day, we provisioned ourselves for the expedition at a quaint island bazaar.
We first managed to find a scenic & comfortable base camp.
From there, we explored east along the shoreline & soon spied our volcano, looming above the Pacific. It seemed possible to climb it in a long day.
The next day, we broke camp early & started down the beach.
After hours, we reached the scenic black sand beach that leads to the steep cliffs of choss that guard the south face of Mt. Pu'u Ola'i.
We worked north, trying to find an opening in the tropical vegetation, that would allow us to forge our way up the suicidally-steep slopes of poorly consolidated volcanic rock.
Of course, the choss & the thick & spiny tropical vegetation, were not the only hazards. We had to be wary of the islands vicious feral hogs & roosters. Happily the only feral rooster we encountered was willing to forgo attacking us for some crumbs Heidi had wisely brought along.
We eventually summited, as our stocks of food & water were running low. The views were worth our "sufferfest."
Late that day, we celebrated our victory with dinner at a quaint native island eatery.
Best tropical garlic shrimp tacos I've ever enjoyed.
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Hotfooting it, eh.
Interesting crampons the young(ER) couples wore.
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zBrown? Per your comment? "Interesting crampons the young(ER) couples wore."
In this photo? I believe they were going to explore the ocean, not the volcano. Sorry, but I had not even noticed them in that photo, since I was taken with the somewhat rare, scenic black sand beach, & impressed with the steep choss on the volcano.
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It was this one I think
Just teasing you a little
Fritz_Roy and Floyd
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Damn. You young kids and your extreme climbs!
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Interesting variety of perspectives. My eye was first pulled to the hot pink fins, then, of course the butt nicely accented by the lavender thong. By then the logic began to kick in and the short kicker fins invoked body surfing so my eye next drifted starboard to check out the surf. Since there was not any... I figured they were on a quest for a nice secluded cove and some sex on the beach. Then I noticed the snorkels. I always used scuba style fins whilst snorkeling so that created a bit of cognitive dissonance and I began to analyze the pros and cons of their use for snorkeling and decided they were probably better suited. Or at least as good, and much lighter to trek about with.
Oh yeah, of course the contrast 'twixt the green vegetation and rust choss and sea-land interface also caught my eye and the biologist in me began pondering what other inter-tidal critters might be in the lurking.
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