The Desert Oasis Hiding In Hawaii That Is Pure Magic
By Megan Shute|Published February 25, 2017
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Megan Shute
Author
With more than 10 years of experience as a professional writer, Megan holds a degree in Mass Media from her home state of Minnesota. After college, she chose to trade in her winter boots for slippahs and moved to the beautiful island of Oahu, where she has been living for more than five years. She lives on the west side but is constantly taking mini-road trips across the island and visits the neighboring islands whenever she can getaway. She loves hiking, snorkeling, locally-grown coffee, and finding the best acai bowl on Oahu.
The Hawaiian Islands are world-renowned for their incredible beaches, cascading waterfalls, and lush landscapes, but you’re sure in for a surprise to discover that the Hawaiian Islands – specifically the island of Hawaii – are home to 10 of the world’s 14 distinct climates, including deserts. This vast and mysterious land located within the southwesternmost district on the island of Hawaii, the Ka’u desert is home to dried lava remnants, volcanic ash, sand, and gravel – and little else. This is the Ka’u Desert, and while it is rarely visited by tourists, it is an absolute beauty.
The area lacks vegetation, though it cannot technically be referred to as a true desert because it exceeds 1,000 millimeters (39 inches) in rainfall each year. The rain, however, mixes with the sulfur dioxide released by steam vents, forming acid rain.
Inhospitable conditions paired with a lack of rainfall, extreme heat, and a severe scarcity of plant life cause most people to overlook the raw - and desolate - beauty that is the Ka’u Desert.
The area is a popular hiking destination, with the most popular trailhead beginning near Crater Rim Drive and traversing the desert - crossing over the Great Crack and the Southwest Rift Zone, a major fault zone that looks like a giant groove in the earth - before reaching Kilauea Volcano.
In 1790, during the most devastating eruption in Kilauea’s history, a group of more than 80 warriors was marching through the desert and died from breathing ash while fleeing. These are their footprints.
The crowned jewel of the Ka’u Desert is a little larger than a few footprints, though. A massive chasm in the earth, the Great Crack measures in at eight miles long, 60 feet wide, and 60 feet deep.
Have you ever experienced the beauty that is the Ka’u desert? For more information about the places in this district, check out South Point, and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
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