For my second major hike on the Big Island, I loop hiked two outstanding trails in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park — the Napau Trail and the Naulu Trail. Doing these two trails as a loop hike requires a car shuttle. In addition, I also hiked out the spur trail to the viewpoint of Napau Crater. The hike took me 7 1/2 hours and covered about 12.2 trail miles plus 3 road miles. There were so many outstanding aspects to this hike which I will be discussing in detail in an upcoming report. The hike essentially passes through a variety of lava flow areas from recent times and occasionally enters rainforest which was untouched by lava. This hike was way different from anything I had ever done before. I originally intended to hike to the summit of Mauna Loa. But that has been closed all week due to hurricane-force winds. Maybe it was for the best, because this hike turned out to be so good.



