Climbing Mauna Kea |
 The route we took to get to the Mauna Kea Visitor Center, which is also known as the Ellison Onizuka Visitor Center and which is where Eric and I began our Mauna Kea hike, is marked in yellow on this map. From Waimea, we drove south on the Mamalahoa Highway (Hawaiian state route 190), then south-east first on the Saddle Road and then on the new Daniel K. Inouye Highway (Hawaiian state route 200) before turning left onto the Mauna Kea access road and heading north for little more than 6 miles / 10 kilometres. The drive from Waimea to the Mauna Kea Visitor Center a total distance of about 38 miles / 61 kilometres took us about an hour and twenty minutes. Why so long? Well, not only was it pitch dark, but we also climbed from about 2,500 feet / 760 metres above sea-level to 9,200 feet / 2,800 metres. (On the map Ive also marked roughly where Rosemary and Tom Fitch live: its the small red x slightly to the left of the second C in the township named Captain Cook.) |