Great cite. Thank you.
One of the HVO updates included the phrase “grapefruit-sized tephra”. I’d hate to get hit by that even if it was something light and puffy like pumice rather than something denser. My car would hate it too.
Yeah, the tephra was a huge deal this time. It’s not usually noteworthy, but a combination of the large amount being ejected and the direction of the wind resulted in a “hail” storm. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Highway 11 were closed for a while, lots of cars were damaged, and there is a gigantic mess in the vicinity.
That day I was supposed to go to the Kahuku Unit (a Park property near South Point) for a commemoration event of the 1975 Halapē tsunami, but had to beg off because I had a “celebration of life” to attend in Hilo. Even in Hilo, many miles away, the grit that fell on the car was very noticeable and had to be washed off. I’m really glad I didn’t get caught up in the tephra mess. My colleagues who did were stuck and didn’t make it home until 8pm. Plus permanent damage to their cars and tires.
And Episode 42 is underway!
HVO says it kicked off at 1350 HT and now as I post at ~1530HT (2030 ET) it’s fountaining like mad, much like Episode 41 did. Hooray!
Right now V1 & 3 offer good views while V2 is socked in with fog/vog.
Kilauea is erupting for my birthday! If you look at the V2 cam right now, that is what I saw on my recent visit.
Happy birthday! Now try to blow out those fountain birthday candles!
All I see on V2 is clouds or mist, but V1 and V3 have a great show.
I just want something interesting to be happening on March 3, when my wife and I will be taking a helicopter tour over the volcano.
Nice - just caught the tail end of it about 10 minutes ago, (23:30, 02-15-2026)
and now it’s over (23;42, 02-15-2026) !
So a short eruption, but a vigorous one. And hooray for a birthday eruption; not everyone gets one of those.
I wasn’t paying as close attention as I usually do to the lead-up, so I missed all the fun precursor activity this time. Oh well … with luck there will still be a lot more. (I do wonder how long this will continue. 42 episodes is a pretty good run.)
So I missed the event last night, but there is a beautiful rainbow on V3 cam.
It’s gone now but I got to see it by rolling the camera back a little. Very nice!
It’s still there, it’s just lower.
It’s going in and out. I looked and it was gone, checked your post to be sure I had the correct camera, and it was back. Then I watched it fade again.
Careful pjd, no political comments here please.
Shame the article didn’t give a bit more info.
Sounds like a perfectly ordinary hiking accident that just happened to occur on a volcanic mountain, not a boring ordinary mountain.
Separate topic: HVO estimates the next fountaining event will begin in the March 10-15 timeframe. Unless something else changes. See USGS Volcano Notice - DOI-USGS-HVO-2026-03-05T18:05:06+00:00
The article says that the hiker was in a “closed” area. It’s possible that he somehow missed the signage that indicated that he was entering a closed area, but it’s probably more likely that he just decided that those rules didn’t apply to him.
In 2007 I hiked out to where a lava flow from Kilauea was pouring into the ocean. There were certain areas along the way that were roped off and well marked as dangerous. A ranger told us that on the previous day, someone had crossed the ropes and walked out onto an unstable shelf, which collapsed and killed them. Hiking on Kilauea has risks that you rarely encounter on boring ordinary mountains. But I agree it would be interesting to know exactly how the hiker died in this incident.
Depends on your definition of “perfectly ordinary.” The spot where the body was found is well into a closed off area - not to say that people don’t cross the boundaries inappropriately from time to time, but you’d have to be nuts to go right up to the crater edge like he apparently did. For the sake of the search and rescue team, I hope it’s quite rare for people to get THAT far into the danger zone.
Thanks for more info. Those were the details the article lacked.
Did he march into an active gas zone? A recently liquid zone that still had soft spots?
Or did he just set off across a cold hard old outflow area that’s stupid difficult to walk on then twist an ankle and die of exposure 1/2 mile from the nearest active footpath with passersby on it?
Big difference in relative stupidity.
Hmm, I don’t think so - it was stupid no matter what. As a Hawaii resident, he most likely knew about the dangers of any trek across lava, especially so close to active vents. Stumbling into crevices (or experiencing a disabling ankle sprain from crossing uneven terrain), falling into thin-crusted lava tubes, breathing fumes that a sudden change in wind direction sent your way, getting caught in an acid mist (like what happened to this guy) - these are all very real threats. That’s why ANY venture into closed-off areas of HVNP is stupid. Even adjacent to marked trails in areas open to the public, there are dangers - anyone who has hiked in the rain forest at HVNP will recall seeing plenty of large, deep holes in the ground, half overgrown with vegetation, just a few steps off the marked path.
If he’d gone 5 feet beyond a posted danger sign, eh … not a great idea, but then the concept of “relative stupidity” may be appropriate. But where he was? No, his mere presence at the lip of the crater indicates he was a monumental idiot, suicidal, delusional, or stoned out of his mind. Maybe some combination of those factors. But he had to hike across lots of dangerous, closed-off terrain to get to where he fell.
ETA: I just realized that other posters here may not have seen the photo in the local paper showing where he was found. The paper is paywalled, so I just uploaded an image to Imgur:
It appears he fell into the caldera.
Thank you. Now that’s stupid. World class stupid. If he wanted to commune w Pele he succeeded. Reminds me of that guy who communed with grizzlies up in Alaska until one ate him.
The Guardian article upthread we’d been relying on had no pix and no details except that he was in a closed area. Maybe 10 feet off the path, maybe at the bottom of a lava tube, maybe encased to the waist in now-solid but recently molten rock. Zero details.