| Mauna Loa is the second highest peak in the Hawaii. The Highest Peak Mauna Kea (120 ft higher than Mauna Loa) is right next to the Mauna Loa. I planed to drive up to the Mauna Kea, then hiked up to the Mauna Loa. Unforunately, my rental Jeep got trouble on the way up to the Mauna Kea. The transmission seal popped out from the case and splashed all transmission oil over the road. I just turn around and cruise back to the Hilo with no transmission for 25 miles. It took me about 1 hour, but the road is basically the down hill and there were no traffic signal until Hilo. After I got back to Hilo, I called the rental Jeep guy for help. He came for help in half an hour and tried to get the car fixed, but unfortunately it was Sunday and we couldn't get parts. Since he didn't have any other car for rental, he gave me an offer for the ride to Mauna Loa and pick me up on the next day. The road up to the Mauna Loa Observatory (the trailhead), is paved road and it was very clean, but there is only 1 lane and keep winding for many miles. If you miss the road, you drive into the lava field. After 1.5 hours of driving, we reached the Mauna Loa weather observatory parking. This was my trailhead. Once we got there, it started sprinkling and thunder started roaring. The trail is created on the Lava. Actually, Mauna Loa is Lava Mountain. There are huge cairns every 100ft. But, it is very easily to miss it since all the rock is the same color. I had to stop many times to look for the next cairn. It was supposed to only 4 miles up to the crater rim. It was right. But, trail spread and one way goes up to the Cabin and other way goes to the Summit. And I took the Summit way. Cabin is opposite side of the crater rim and there were 4.6 miles trail along the rim inbetween cabin and the summit. Once I made up to the crater rim, it was already 5pm. So, I had decided to head to cabin. From that point to the Cabin was 2.6 mile, but it was very long 2.6 mile. Altitude is over 13,000 ft and less oxgen really kicked my butt. I didn't get high altitude sickness, but I couldn't walk fast as usual. It took me about 2 hours to get to the cabin from there. There was already one backpacker in the cabin. After I took a short dinner, I piched my sleeping bag on the outside of the cabin. The meteor shower supposed to be seen on that day and that is the reason I chose to camp at the Mauna Loa summit cabin. I could see 20-30 meteors until I fell asleep. Once I woke up in the very early in the morning, it was covered with thick cloud. But, I was too tired to move into the cabin and decided to sleep outside. When I woke up in the morning, I found my sleeping bag was frosted. Thick cloud dropped lots of mist/moisture over my sleeping bag. Fortunately, I was not cold at all. After the short breakfast, we had decided to go Mauna Loa summit together. On the way, we missed the cairn and we had to break our own trail for last half mile, but we found the hidden view spot. We made it to the Summit in 2 hours 15 minutes from the cabin. The view was amazing. After few minutes of break at the summit, we headded down and we made back to the trail junction in 45 minutes. Since the other guy were going down to the Red Hill cabin, we spread at there and I headed down to observatory trail. It took me another 2 hours to get back down to the trailhead. |
 Entire 3D trail map |
 Observatory trail |
 Crater Rim to the Cabin |
 Mauna Loa Summit |
 Elevation Chart |
 Google Earth |
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