Dallas Morning News:
On the Big Island, even the moon looms larger

By TIMOTHY NOLAN / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News April 23, 2006
BIG ISLAND OF HAWAII, Hawaii - Sitting in the shadow of a palm tree, we wait for the van that will take us to the crest of Mauna Kea, at 13,796 feet the tallest mountain in the Hawaiian Islands. Or the tallest in the world, if you consider that from the sea floor to the summit, Mauna Kea rises just over 500 feet higher than Mount Everest. Big Islanders don't hesitate to make this point.
We're going to stargaze.
Our guide, John Mitchell, assures us that the gloves are one-size-fits-all, but he asks our parka size. It's 80 degrees. The palm fronds wave goodbye, and he has asked about coats.

AP/File
Mauna Kea's crest glitters with 13 of the world's most sophisticated observatories.

Then we're off - up - riding through fields and fingers of lava flecked with African fountain grass and the occasional exhausted-looking mesquite tree. The road to the summit of Mauna Kea is no idyll in paradise.
That route, so slender and rutted it might have been built during an asphalt shortage, is called the Saddle Road, because it runs uphill through a slot between Mauna Kea and its hulking sibling, Mauna Loa, then back down from its midisland crest to the island's largest city, Hilo. After a stop for dinner beneath open-sided tents set out among the Cook pines of an old ranch complex, the gazers-to-be, 10 of us, know one another a little better, and in the cloudy coolness of 6,000 feet in altitude, are beginning to understand the relevance of parkas.
The rest of the ride up takes on a spooky bleakness. A few grasses cling to the increasingly lunar terrain of powdered lava and black smokestacks of cinder cones. It's lonely country. Camouflaged 18-wheel tankers and Humvees appear at road crossings. Army country. In fact, a sign informs us we're crossing an artillery range. And yes, indeedy, they practice using live ammunition.
We take our cue from an unperturbed John, who among his earlier careers spent six years as an engineer fiddling with nuclear reactors aboard submarines. For him and us, getting there has become half the fun. Sort of.
The last few miles of road up the flank of the mountain switch back and forth, hiking-trail style. We kick up a red-brown dust: glacial till mixed with the lava. Cinder cones have grown commonplace. We reach Mauna Kea's crest at sunset. Its crown glitters with 13 of the world's most sophisticated observatories. Billions of dollars in gear peers unimaginably far into the universe. Pollution-free air and the almost complete absence of ambient light make it the best site on Earth for observing the heavens.
For the 10 amateurs fully bundled in their parkas against 25-degree temperatures sharpened by a brisk breeze, deep space is of less interest than a freaky celestial event: Just as the sun drops into a cloud deck far below us, laying down bands of red and yellow the length of the horizon, the full moon bobs up, intensely white in the glassy, high-altitude light. The show is a marvel: polished air laced with color, a surreal landscape, even a cold so pronounced that the warmth we left behind seems dreamlike.
The display, though spectacular, is a mixed blessing, John says. The brightness of the moon will wash the night sky clear of dimmer galaxies. Our view will be limited to more-familiar things: bright stars such as Sirius, the constellations Orion and Cassiopeia. At the last of dusk, we drop down 4,000 feet to a visitor center and squint through a variety of telescopes at points of light that turn out to be clusters of stars, Mars, Jupiter, even a satellite whipping through the sky. "Might be the Hubble," someone says. John thinks about that, says it could be.
The van strains as hard descending the mountain as it did going up.
"Well, the star show wasn't that great tonight," John says a little apologetically, "but we got to see some tremendous stuff. Great sunset, beautiful moon."
It would be easy to doze in the warm van. But the Big Island has one more celestial card to play. John brakes to a stop, turns off his lights and points straight ahead. A pearly luminescence arcs across the darkness below.
"Moonbow," he says, what amounts to a rainbow created by the light of a full moon. Though he's a veteran guide even John is blown away. "Not common," he says. "I've seen very few."
We study the moonbow, memorizing this last emphatic piece of Big Island exotica. An hour or so later, we are deposited back at sea level, parkas long jettisoned. A warm breeze is running. High in the palms, fronds are tossing, one to another, the perfect white ball of a full moon.
Timothy Nolan is a freelance writer in New York.
When you go
STAR TOURS
Hawaii Forest and Trail is one of a half-dozen companies permitted access to Mauna Kea. It charges $165 plus tax for the Mauna Kea Summit and Stars Tour. The price includes transportation, guide, dinner, telescopes for observing the heavens and narration of volcanic landscape and the stars. Budget about eight hours for the trip. Minimum age is 16. Warm clothing is provided. Contact: 1-800-464-1993; www.hawaii-forest.com.
DETAILS
The air atop the mountain has about 60 percent less oxygen than it does at sea level, a consideration for visitors with respiratory problems. Altitude sickness is rare, but all guides are trained in treating it, and every van is required to carry oxygen.
Tipping your guide isn't required, but it is recommended.