After breakfast and a stop at the post office, we headed out to the Jagger Museum before beginning the day of hikes. The first stop was at the Southwest Rift Zone. Here we viewed the crossbedding of ash sediments deposited by wind before walking the crater's edge.
There have been 17 eruptions and 4 collapses of this crater over time. We were able to see the NeNe while at the crater. The NeNe are extremely rare and were almost driven to extinction but a breeding program is trying to prevent the loss of this bird.
From there we headed to Devestation Trail. The area is close to a climate community. Before the Kileau eruptions, the area was a mature forest. There is evidence of ash along the trail that buried the trees. Runners, small ferns, and ground cover can now be seen along the trail.
We headed to the Thurston Lava tube for lunch then a hike to the mouth of Kileau'iki. The area around the lava tube is a native forest and the rangers have removed non-native species along with erecting a fence to keep out ferral animals. The walls inside the tube are etched with the different lava eruptions and there was some drip marks and fleuting also seen in the wall of the tube.
Hiking in the crater was a lot of fun. There were fummerals and steam vents along the way along with uplifted strata due to the pushing up from the magma below.
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