Kilauea Iki Trail starts from Kilauea Iki Overlook. This trail is one of the best in the park, offering excellent opportunities to enjoy Hawaiian rain forest and plants, see views of Kilauea Iki pit crater and beautiful vistas, and explore features from the 1959 eruption. The trail is a 4 mile (6.5 km) loop that takes 2-3 hours to hike. The park rangers recommend that visitors follow the trail in a counter-clockwise direction.

History:

Kilauea Iki is a collapse crater adjacent to the main summit caldera of the active volcano, Kilauea. Beginning in August of 1959, geologists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory began detecting a swarm of deep earthquakes on seismographs located at the observatory. By early October, measurements indicated that the summit of Kilauea was beginning to inflate with new magma. From mid-September to November 1, more than 1,000 earthquakes were being detected. By November 14, all the activity beneath the surface had increased tenfold indicating that magma was making its way to the surface. At 8:08 p.m. that same day, an eruptive fissure broke through the south wall of Kilauea Iki Crater. Continuous fountaining occurred from a solitary vent located on the crater wall about 20 m above the small west crater of Kilauea Iki.

The lava rapids were described as “a bright orange, incandescent, twisting ribbon that made a slurred gurgling sound as it glided past. At the bottom of the cascade a stationary wave of lava, similar in appearance to a standing water wave in rapids, crested 1 m above the sluggish river and disappeared beneath the frozen crust of the lake.”

The lava fountain reached heights of 60-80 m by morning on November 17, and cinder, spatter, and pumice were falling onto the south rim of Kilauea Iki Crater. The falling fragments began to build a new cinder cone, which was eventually named Pu’u Pua`i (gushing hill).

A total of 71 million m³ of lava was ejected during the month long eruption, however because of all the drainbacks only 8 million m³ of lava actually remained in the crater when the eruption was over.

The eruption stopped on December 20, 1959.