Sleeping on the Rim of the Crater: Volcano House

Kilauea caldera
Kilauea caldera -- closest volcano inn, volcanoes national park hotel, is Volcano House
Kilauea: IF you take a helicopter ride near dusk, on a VERY clear evening — you might get this view, but you cannot count on it. Photograph, iStock Photos.

The closer we came to Volcano House, the deeper into the mist we went.

At check-in, we could not have been more socked in . . . and all I could think was, “We’ve traveled so far, and all we’re going to see is the inside of a cloud.” Kilauea has been erupting continuously since 1984, and of course we all hope — all really expect I suppose, to see fiery, glowing lava.

The reality is this: Kilauea is on the wet side of the island + the volcano makes its own weather. Combine the two, and you may have a white-out with NO visibility at all. Kilauea receives 69 inches of rain each year. The US average is 39. Additionally, you may be motivated to visit the Big Island based on photographs and video from a period of high volcanic activity. When we were there, there was only a small area with active lava, in the Halema’uma’u pit crater, and there was no lava flowing into the sea.

Foggy view outside of Volcano House Hawaii, volcano inn, volcanoes national park hotel
The view from Volcano House on our first afternoon. Photograph, Ann Fisher.

Cloud, fog, and mist enveloped the entire of our afternoon and evening. Dinner in the Rim Restaurant, which boasts a view of the glowing crater on a clear night, gave us nothing more than our own reflections in the picture window.

Should we stay or should we go now?

Should we spend a second day and evening as planned? Or cut our losses and beat it back over to the sunny side of the Big Island? Weather forecasts were not promising. We wouldn’t get a refund on our second night at Volcano house — but we came close to making the decision to leave the next morning. We sat looking out into the mist, trying to make up our minds.

After talking to a couple who had been there for two nights already, they said that the weather had cleared enough that morning to see the caldera, and they expected a repeat.

First View of Kilauea

Early the next morning, we grabbed coffee and headed for the Jaggar Museum and Overlook. And this is what it looked like . . .

White out conditions at the Jaggar Museum and Overlook
Closest point to the active caldera at Kilauea is at the Jaggar Museum and overlook. And that was our view . . . Photograph, Ann Fisher

A family walked to the observation area, and a boy of around eight scrambled up to stand on the low wall next to us.

“We’ve been here since Saturday,” he said, “and we’ve hiked all over.” He walked back and forth along his section of wall in a double-quick beat, pivoting, and retracing his steps three times over.

“Did you know there are two kinds of lava? Pāhoehoe and ʻAʻā Lava. This is ʻAʻā.” He pointed at what was in front of us. “You see how it all rocky and sharp?”

“Then there is Pāhoehoe and it’s all smooth and unbroken, and it just LOOKS like lava. It’s —  s . . . l .  .  . o . . . w,” mimicking the movement of the lava with glacial, flowing gestures of his hands.

“That’s why it’s so smooth. You can be looking at Pāhoehoe — and who knows?? There might  be hot lava under it, but it’s all covered with rock and you can’t see it until SUDDENLY it melts the rock and it’s all soft and it’s yellow and then it’s red and then it turns black. We saw that kind the other day, and then there’s this whole field that was made like that.” His arms spread to encompass an impossibly large space.

He went on without drawing a breath, “My favorite kind is Pāhoehoe, and there is some ahead of us, and it’s right there. You can’t see it right now on account of all this but . . . but if you stepped on it, it would burn your feet off, and you’d be like “aaiiiihhh!” his squeal quite piercing as he leapt off of the wall and started jumping around, acting out losing a foot.

He looked in the direction of the caldera, suddenly still and quiet for the first time since we’d laid eyes on him.

After a few seconds, he turned and looked at us with abject disgust. “Don’t you just HATE  the mist??!!!”

And then it happened.

A little triangle of blue sky appeared for a moment off to our right. Momentary, a mere flicker, then gone, and then there again.

Cloud around Kilauea begins to clear
I’m not sure if our young companion willed the clearing into being — but we were all relieved to see that patch of blue sky. Photograph, Ann Fisher

The boy looked back towards the caldera, then jumped and jumped and jumped and pointed, and we all looked.

The cloud surrounding us thinned slightly, we could see scorched, smoking earth, and there was just the barest sliver of orange in the distance.

glimpse of lava at Kilauea
Dancing lava just below the edge of the caldera. This is shot from the overlook with a 300mm lens.

The white around us shifted, visibility ebbing, returning, then ebbing again. Our cloud clung to us, unwilling to let go. We decided to go back for breakfast, and more importantly, for more COFFEE, and — wait and see whether we might get a real clearing.

During breakfast in the Rim restaurant, we finally began to see the entire crater of Kilauea . . . and to realize what a stunning location Volcano House has.

View from Rim Restaurant at Volcano Lodge, Volcano Inn, Hotel in volcano
View from the Rim Restaurant at breakfast. Photograph, Ann Fisher.

On our second evening, we were finally rewarded with dinner while watching the dancing glow of the lava. I woke several times during the night to pull the curtains aside and marvel at the sight.

The glow from Kilauea photographed with 300mm lens from Volcano House.
The glow from Kilauea photographed with 300mm lens from Volcano House. Photograph, Ann Fisher.

Ways to see more of Kilauea

  • Go to the Jaggar Museum and overlook. This is the closest viewing point to the Halema’uma’u pit crater — the one area with active lava within the larger Kilauea caldera. If the viewing area is super-crowded, try the far end of the parking lot here.
  • Kilauea view point half a mile before the Jaggar Museum also offers a good view, although you aren’t has close to the Halema’uma’u crater.
  • Boat tours to see the lava flow into the sea.
  • Helicopter Tours around Kilauea
  • Hikes to see the lava flow

First, know how much volcanic activity is going on. If lava isn’t flowing into the ocean, then boat tours would be a big NO.

Helicopter flight? With a clear day, this would be extraordinary — but I’d want to go at just post-sunset to capture the glow. See the video below for an idea of what a daytime flight will give you.

Here’s the thing. If visibility is poor, then a helicopter flight won’t be great. On the other hand, if you have an amazingly clear day, and you wait until the last minute to try to make a flight, the time you want to go may be booked. It’s a judgement call. You’ll find a variety of tour operators and an ability to compare prices here: HawaiiActivities.com.

The Big Island

While the Big Island of Hawai’i is the youngest in the chain of Hawaiin islands, it has the longest history of human habitation. Over a thousand years ago, Polynesians from the distant Marquesas islands sailed across the Pacific in doubled-hulled canoes in search of new land, and it was this island they settled first.

Map of Hawaii
The Big Island of Hawai’i lives up to its name. It represents 63% of the total land mass of the state. Click to enlarge.

How big is the Big Island? Massive in comparison to the other islands of the Hawaiian archipelago. With a land mass of 4,028 square miles, it’s larger than all of the other Hawaiian islands put together — and it is in fact larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. And it’s still growing!

If you’re interested in learning about volcanic activity, you’ve come to the right place! Home to five volcanos, as well as a sixth submerged volcano, visiting the Big Island is like stepping into a textbook on volcanology.

We flew into Kona late on a Tuesday, and after a night’s sleep headed across the island to spend a some time in the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. The drive from Kona to Hilo was beautiful. The fields of volcanic rock were fascinating — my favorites being the ones that look like slow moving lava.

pāhoehoe Volcanic rock on the big island of Hawaii
Miles upon miles of Pāhoehoe volcanic rock, so like lava, you almost expect it to be burning hot. Photograph, Ann Fisher.
Aerial view of part of the Big Island.
Aerial view of part of the Big Island. Photograph, iStock Photos.

Vistas on the drive changed from black fields of volcanic rock to gentle hills and small almost-mountains covered in fluttering grass, a soft green velvet rolling on towards the horizon in all directions.

We took the bright sunshine and clear blue sky of the morning too much for granted, and squandered it on lunch in Hilo before heading into our cloud at Volcano House.

View of Volcano House, the volcanoes national park hotel
Volcano House: one of the great lodges of the National Park system. Photograph, Ann Fisher.

A Volcano Lodge in Hawaii? Volcano House!

The minute you choose the Big Island over Kaua’i or Maui, it’s likely that Kilauea is calling your name . . . and anyone who loves our National Parks immediately wonders: is there a volcano lodge? a volcanoes national park hotel? There is indeed.

1877 Volcano House
The 1877 iteration of Volcano House.

Volcano House makes many lists of the greatest of the National Park Lodges in the United States. Sleeping on the rim of the crater has captured travelers’ imaginations for over 170 years, and thus there have been a series of four buildings called Volcano House.

Famous visitors include Mark Twain, Isabella Bird, Robert Louis Stevenson, Louis Pasteur, Jack London, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The first Volcano House was a one room grass shelter built in 1846. It was followed by a 1866 wooden structure with four bedrooms, a dining room, and a parlor — and it was here that Mark Twain stayed on his trip to Hawaii:

“By the path it is half a mile from the Volcano House to the lookout- house. After a hearty supper we waited until it was thoroughly dark and then started to the crater. The first glance in that direction revealed a scene of wild beauty. There was a heavy fog over the crater and it was splendidly illuminated by the glare from the fires below. The illumination was two miles wide and a mile high, perhaps; and if you ever, on a dark night and at a distance beheld the light from thirty or forty blocks of distant buildings all on fire at once, reflected strongly against over-hanging clouds, you can form a fair idea of what this looked like.” — Mark Twain, Roughing It.

Read more of Mark Twain’s adventures in Hawai’i here.

Perhaps not the brightest tourists in the world — these folks get a photo with Kilauea erupting in the background.

In 1877, George W. C. Jones built a sturdier version of Volcano House, which was enlarged upon several times. In one of those renovations, the 1877 structure was sawn off and moved back away from the rim to serve as employee accommodations. That building still exists, and now serves as an art gallery.

Then following an eruption in 1919, the crater filled with an enormous lava lake that must have been extraordinary to see, before the next massive explosive eruptions in 1924.

In 1940, Volcano House burned to the ground. Culprit? A kitchen fire, not a volcanic eruption. The current Volcano House dates to late 1941, with a new wing that was completed in 1961. Volcano House closed in 2010 for major renovations, and reopened in 2013.

Franklin Roosevelt (in car) visits the rim of Kilauea on August 3, 1934.

Is Volcanoes National Park Hotel for you?

Practical information you need about whether to stay at Volcano House.

Reality Check. The great lodges of the National Parks are not luxury hotels.

The reason our great lodges were built was to provide visitors with comfortable accommodations so that they could spend time in our most beautiful natural spaces: El Tovar on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone, The Majestic (formally the Ahwahnee Hotel) in Yosemite, and yes, Volcano House on the rim of Kilauea. For a crater-view room we paid $335 a night.

For that price, if you expect a four star hotel, then Volcano House is probably not for you.

If you understand why this is such a special place, then you should come.

Pele carving from the Volcano House fireplace, volcanoes national park hotel
Detail from the Volcano House fireplace: a carving of Pele, goddess of fire. Photograph, Ann Fisher.

What is Volcano House like? It’s a comfortable, rambling bungalow-style structure. The hotel’s most striking feature is its view, which it plays to with large picture windows facing the rim of the crater throughout the public spaces.

We thought our room was a reasonable size, with a large closet, a single chair, and a very comfortable king bed. The day and evening we had good visibility, we had a wonderful view of the crater, and could see the glow from the lava throughout the evening.

There is NO AIR CONDITIONING. This is of course true of many places in Hawai’i.

Windows at Volcano House are screened and the front desk will supply a small tower fan if requested (there should be one in your closet, but ours was missing — but the front desk gave us one). Temperatures at night, while cool outside, were warmer inside our room, but fine.

King bed crater view room, volcano inn, volcanoes national park hotel, Volcano House
Our crater-view room at Volcano House on the first day — with no visibility. Photograph, Ann Fisher.

The bathrooms are serviceable. The shower is small, and there is no interior light in the stall, so it’s a bit dark. While the bathroom tile was completely re-done during the renovation, and everything appears to be clean, there is a hint of a smell of mildew. Although I couldn’t see anything, I suspect the shower curtain, since the shower space gets no air movement.

Food quality at The Rim Restaurant was satisfactory, but no more. While the menu suggests a fine dining experience (with the prices to go along with it) you’ll find only a workmanlike production of the food. From my point of view, this was acceptable. I was paying to eat in an historic lodge on the edge of a volcano. In the morning, the Rim does a good breakfast buffet with an egg, omelette, and waffle station. You’ll find menus and other dining information here: Dining at the Volcano House.

On the days that a cruise ship docks in Hilo, both Volcano National Park AND the Volcano House will be hopping. 10:50 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. is prime time for cruise ship visitors. Contact Volcano House to determine current cruise schedule; you may want to avoid booking a room on cruise ship days.

Vog

There are volcanic air pollution hazards in Hawaii caused by volcanic smog (vog).

Vents all over and around the crater of Kilauea  spout steam along with some sulphur dioxide gas. Most people handle standard conditions around Kilauea without a problem, but for people with breathing conditions or other health issues, it can be dangerous. Higher concentrations of sulphur dioxide gas are a concern for everyone. You’ll find current air advisory information at the Kilauea Visitor’s Center. If you or a member of your traveling party has asthma, emphysema, or another breathing related disease, you should contact the Volcanoes National Park headquarters for information before planning a trip.

Volcano House Contact Information
Address: 1 Crater Rim Drive, Hawaii National Park, HI 96718
Reservations: 1-866-536-7972
Volcano House Website

I’ll leave you with two photographs. Even on our clearest day, we did not get the conditions for me to take photographs like this, and of course — there was no lava flowing into the ocean 🙁 . Would I return to see Kilauea? Yes. If there is an increase in volcanic activity — I’ll be back. You can find current status information on Kilauea here.

Update

While I missed seeing any significant volcanic activity on my trip in early April 2018, we all know Kilauea has been a VERY BUSY volcano recently.

Volcano House was closed on May 11, 2018, and will remain that way along with most of the Volcanoes National Park, until it is safe for visitors to return. As of August 20, 2018, both both Volcano House and the National Park remain closed, and the soonest re-opening date is listed as mid-October, 2018. You can find updates on the park opening here. Then the Volcano House website will certainly state when they re-open.

If you are lucky, lava will pouring into the ocean while you visit the Big Island. Photograph, iStock Photos.
Beautiful: Kilauea at sunset on a clear day. Photograph, iStock Photos.

 

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Ann Fisher

Writer, traveler, and cancer fighter. Get out there and live life!

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13 thoughts on “Sleeping on the Rim of the Crater: Volcano House

  1. Browsing the Atlas August 27, 2018 at 7:34 pm

    Wow! I would love to stay here. Volcanoes fascinate me. I didn’t think I’d be able to do anything more than hike near one, but to actually stay close by?? Nirvana! Of course, I know that I’ll have to wait. (Thank you for the updates on the closure), but I don’t have plans to go to Hawaii anytime soon,anyway, so will just keep this on my radar for that distant day when I do.

    Reply
    1. Ann Fisher August 28, 2018 at 12:04 pm

      It really is an extraordinary location. And I love staying in historic inns and hotels — so as far as I was concerned, this was a great experience.

      Reply
  2. Andi August 27, 2018 at 5:47 pm

    My husband has been up there with a photography workshop to take photos, but I didn’t realize they also had places to stay up there. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Oahu, Maui and Hawaii and I absolutely love Hawaii the best. It feels less touristy and more natural. It’s such a beautiful island with a huge amount of diversity!

    Reply
    1. Ann Fisher August 28, 2018 at 12:05 pm

      Taking a photography workshop here would be amazing! And yes, the diversity of the Big Island is pretty amazing.

      Reply
  3. Ashley @ A Southern Gypsy August 27, 2018 at 8:18 am

    Oh, I love this post! I’ve never been to Hawaii but its my dream to see an active volcano! I’d love to see the lava flowing into the ocean – just seems like such a contradicting visual. I’d definitely pay the price to stay at Volcano House – I hope everything goes okay during the closure.

    Reply
    1. Ann Fisher August 28, 2018 at 12:06 pm

      Me, too. It would be a great loss if something bad happened to this historic lodge.

      Reply
  4. Cat August 24, 2018 at 2:29 am

    What a cool experience! I have heard my friend talked about watching the lava flow into the ocean on The Big Island but I didn’t know you can get so close. It is great that you stayed and witness that yourself!!

    Reply
  5. trimmtravels August 21, 2018 at 10:04 pm

    I have been to the Big Island, but we didn’t do a helicopter ride. (We did sunrise at the top of Haleakala on Maui instead). We did do Volcanoes National Park and we saw the lava at night from the ship (but nothing like what is in your photo)! Aren’t you glad you held out and stayed?? Beautiful shots of the lava! That 8 year old…I can’t even pronounce half the words that apparently were flying out of his mouth, wow!! If I went back I would love to stay at the Volcano House and hopefully get to see at least what you did!

    Reply
    1. Ann Fisher August 28, 2018 at 12:08 pm

      I would love to do either a sunrise or sunset helicopter ride here. Otherwise, I’d skip it. As a photographer trying to capture Kilauea, it really takes that somewhat darkened sky to really show off the glow.

      Reply
  6. Sarah August 20, 2018 at 8:17 pm

    I love this post. I learned so much about kilauea and how it can actually create its own weather.. that’s crazy! Also ‘vog’… what a fun word (probably not a fun experience though!). The volcano house sounds incredible. I’m glad you decided to stay and not leave for the other side of the island too soon!!

    Reply
  7. Jenn and Ed Coleman June 10, 2018 at 10:32 am

    It’s been way too long since I’ve read one of your posts. I love your voice and how you bring me into the scene. Waiting for the fog to clear is such a common trope for outdoor photography. The stock photos are filled with amazing shots that took thousands of hours of waiting (or amazing blind luck) to achieve. Waiting for that sliver of blue sky or gap in the torrential rain the real world. Hopefully, it will not not be so long until we read your next piece.

    Reply
    1. Ann June 10, 2018 at 5:25 pm

      Thanks, you two. I feel the same way about reading your blog posts — great writing. We’ve been away to long! I’ll head over to your blog and get caught up 🙂 .

      Reply
  8. Julianne June 8, 2018 at 2:22 pm

    Loved reading your post, Ann! It reminded me of when I visited the Big Island and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in November 2016. Seeing lava flowing into the ocean was an incredible sight to behold; we stared at the new earth being created in front of our eyes and contemplated life for hours. I’ll also always fondly remember having a glass of wine at Volcano House while looking out at the volcano. I’m glad you got a chance to experience Kilauea in all its splendor too!

    Reply

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