The Active Lava Flow: Approach with Reverence ...
Written: Nov 27 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Indescribably spectacular
Cons: Indescribably dangerous
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| Urbanist's Full Review: Hawaii Volcanoes National Park |
OK, let's start by visualizing a typical National Park summertime scene. Old Faithful, say, or Yosemite Valley, or the Grand Canyon South Rim. Call back your memories of that faintly bovine mass of tourists -- that colorful mélange of grunting, shrieking, oohing, ahhing, chortling, and clicking. Remember the strollers, the crying children, the older kids playing too close to the edge. Remember the people mugging for the cameras, their backs turned away from whatever magnificence brought them there. Remember tourists who, in the redwoods, will pose around a sign identifying a big tree, as though its statistics are theirs, and happily shoot a picture that excludes the tree completely.
You know who I mean. That's right. Not you and your beautiful, well-behaved, sensitive family, who move through the world as true Travelers. But those tourists, those irritating Other People who seem to be everywhere you go, looking and acting the same the world over. Them.
OK, now hold that picture of the herd of tourists, gathered in front of the main attraction in some National Park, emitting their babbles and grunts and shrieks. Got it?
Now, take the land beneath them, and dye it pitch black. Next, chop up the land like diced carrots, so that every surface is a sharp edge, every step is a risk. Now, set a fire underneath the land, way below, so that the ground is just warm, except here and there where it thins so that you can see the earth glowing red.
Now, erase whatever marvel the tourists were pretending to look at. Instead, release a river of orange lava about 50 yards away, flowing from left to right across everyone's field of vision, sliding and bumping and flickering along at 30 mph. Just in front of it, so people don't get too close, imagine some stationary but still molten rock, glowing a brooding maroon.
Follow the flow of the lava, and there, just as it passes in front of the tourists, chop off the land. Leave a sheer cliff dropping to the ocean far below. Saw off the land alongside the tourists too, so that it ends very close to them, a deadly edge with no railing, no warning signs.
Now, turn out the lights.
It's midnight, overcast. No moon. No light but the dark red eyes of buried fire peering from the earth, and the river of searing orange maybe 50 yards away, and the pathetic flickering and waving of hundreds of flashlights and flashbulbs. Without your flashlight, you can't see your own feet. You bring your hand toward your face, but it almost touches before you see it, waving at you like a ghost. Yes, it is REALLY dark here.
Before you, the river of lava hurls itself into the sea, crashing down on a lonely beach far below. The tide goes out, and you see the firefall pouring liquid rock across the beach. The tide comes in, and steam erupts like a bomb-blast, obscuring the view. This is what you and all those tourists have come to see. Pélé, the volcano goddess, pouring out her innards, creating the newest land in the world.
Look at our poor tourists. It's dark. It's cold. They are a mile from their cars, a long hard hike across the chopped, black land. Very near them, they're not sure where, the black land drops into the black sea. This is still a National Park, but there are no railings, no marked trails. Not even a sign, apart from the one they passed long ago, in daylight, which told them that it's extremely dangerous out here.
But the tourists, like tourists anywhere, can't stand still. They want a better view. They shuffle about, tripping, cutting themselves on jagged rock. The brasher among them, usually young men, take the biggest risks. They get too close. They lose their balance and recover it in a wild step onto who-knows-what. On a dare, they urinate on the hot rocks, defying the goddess, proud to be doing something that only men can do. You hear their girlfriends giggling.
It is pitch black, but the tourists still take pictures. Much of the dangerous movement around the lava is families and groups setting up their shots. They smile in the brief flicker of white. When they get home, they'll have a nice picture of Billy, Susan and Joey, smileyfaced on a black background, with some fuzzy orange dots in the distance.
Yes, those tourists (no, not your lovely family, but all those other people) will go on acting the same way, even here at the end, or beginning, of the world.
But now, if you're fortunate, you hear a man singing. Or is he chanting? You don't understand the words, except perhaps the occasional "Pélé". He is singing a Native Hawai'ian prayer to the volcano goddess. Just his strong, young voice, and perhaps his gentle hand on a small drum. You stop moving. Gradually, and it does take time, a stillness falls. Only the brashest, most insensitive of tourists are still bumbling around, and soon they stop out of embarrassment.
The man sings. Over and over, the river of lava pours new land onto the beach, then explodes in steam with the incoming waves. The song and the tide keep time with each other.
Nothing moves but the lava, the sea, and the song. The tourists, even the children, are finally just miniscule humans, silently witnessing the creation of the earth.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Urbanist
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Location: San Francisco
Reviews written: 78
Trusted by: 72 members
About Me:
Streetwise, academically credentialed gay renaissance man. For real bio, click "more" in profile.
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