Night Hike to FLOWING LAVA

One Saturday Franz called to say that Olivier was organizing a night hike to flowing lava. We were to meet at the Volcanos National Park parking lot at the end of the Chain of Craters Road. From there we would hike for 4-5 miles to lava flowing down the hillsides.

About 10 of us headed out from the parking lot at about 8pm and spent 3.5 hours or so hiking over razor sharp a'a lava. We could see the glowing lava light up the clouds in the distance and it never seemed to get any closer! At one point we had to climb up a cliff of frozen crumbly lava which left embedded fragments of glass all over my hands. The hike seemed endless, but finally we crested a ridge and there right below us was a river of molten lava!!! It was incredible!!!! We spent a couple hours taking pictures and being cooked by the intense heat. At one point I threw a piece of frozen lava onto the molten goo to see how long it would take to melt. Not only did it not melt, but it went 'clink' and bounced right off. Crazy Olivier even WALKED across this molten river, TWICE! Eventually we started the long trek back and got back to the compound at 5am.

The lava as seen from the distance lighting up the clouds above