Going With The Flow

Volcanic Activity Has Revealed New Potential On The Big Island.

- Luke Sykora

A light main falls on the emerald flank of Mauna Kea, the distant, cloud-crowned mountain that dominates the Island of Hawaii, the Big Island. Last year’s otherworldly Kilauea volcano eruption recedes into memory; it’s quiet, now, the grass tall and impossibly green, the far-off trees gauzy in the mist. This feels like a land born of water, not fire.

It reminds me of home, at least of one of them. When I was 10, my family relocated to Papua New Guinea. And that’s largely why we’re here in Hawaii. I wanted to introduce my young family to a landscape that resembles my old stomping grounds: trails winding through vine-strangled jungles, markets bursting with ripe mangoes and papayas, glassy coves with aquamarine water.

Leo, our 4-year-old, had his own ideas. A teary stand against active volcanoes meant we would start with something much less threatening: a farm tour at Kulaniapia Falls. If you want to make your kids fall in love with a place, we figure, it doesn’t hurt to start with animals.

Here on the rainy eastern side around Hilo, the scene is in sharp contrast to the sunnier, resort-studded western coast. Before the trip, my wife, Kristin, and I had downplayed last summer’s cataclysm, which leveled entire neighborhoods in the southeast corner of the island and quelled lei-seeking tourists en masse.