Maunakea

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The Maunakea visit was probably the most planned day of our stay in Hawaii for several reasons. We had to rent a car from a local company that permitted taking the car up the mountain (the nationwide car rental companies don’t allow it) and we had to prepare ourselves for the altitude change. Our rental house was at about 3,000 feet; the Maunakea vistor center is at 9,200 feet and the summit (where the telescopes are) is at 14,000.

We started our preparation for our Maunkea adventure the day before by taking a gingko supplement and planning our water supply. The next morning we got up and took another gingko and my daughter put us on a schedule for drinking water. We stopped at the Kipuka at the intersection of the saddle road and the road leading up the mountain.

We climbed the Kipuka and had a snack. I could already feel that the elevation has changed a little. A thin layer of very dark lava is along both sides of the saddle road at this point.The kipuka provided and opportunity for some close up pictures of common mullein (an invasive at higher elevations in Hawaii) and

Some other plants.

Then we drove up to the Maunakea Visitor Information Station. This part of the road is still paved and easy enough in a regular vehicle. Everyone is required to stay at the information station for at least an hour before proceeding up the mountain. We drank a lot more water and ate some crystalized ginger. Our strategy worked…no headaches, no nausea…our bodies were responding to the altitude change reasonably well although we were intentionally not doing any fast walking or running. We made use of our hour with some shopping in the store, observing the cloud deck that was below us and

The side of the mountain above us.

The road from the visitor information station and the telescopes is not paved and often bumpy. It requires a 4-wheel drive vehicle. At the top it is cold and windy. We were prepared with coats and gloves. Our original plan was to tour the Keck but it was not open when we were there but we drove around on the road connecting the telescopes taking pictures of them from the outside and down the mountain. It was bitterly cold and windy…and the altitude (14,000 feet!) made it hard to do anything quickly.

We got our parking spot for sunset. There were other people with the same idea. Everyone huddled in their cars between forays to take pictures. The two round domes connected to each other are the Keck.  The sunset at the cloud deck….and you see the mountains of Maui peeking through the clouds in the distance behind the telescopes.

As we got ready to head down the mountain, we commented that it must have been too windy for the telescopes to open…..but as we made our way down the road our line of sight changed and we saw that one of the Keck’s had opened.

Everyone is required to come down the mountain within 15 minutes of sunset. The visitor center hosts star viewing…..and then it is time to head for our vacation rental in Volcano HI.

Previous Hawaii Posts:

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 5, 2015

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Indestructible Water Bears Have a Genome That Is Seriously Weird – Over 17% of their genome comes from other organisms! 9% of rotifer genome is from other organisms. Now that we are sequencing genomes nothing is as absolute as we’d once assumed.

Discover Jordan’s past and present in Google Maps – Take a look at Petra and other sites in Jordan.

5 Root Vegetables to Put on Your Radar – Parsnips, turnips, Jerusalem artichokes, jicama, and daikon radish…have you tried any/all of these? There are 3 that I have not so maybe they will be part of a food adventure this winter.

Farming Sped Eurasian Evolution – And it was a migration of people not a diffusion of ideas that spread farming into Europe.

London Was Diverse Even Its Early Roman Days – In 50 AD…London was already a cross roads with people from other parts of Europe and as far away as North Africa living alongside people that had been in Britain for longer.

Loss of mastodons aided domestication of pumpkins, squash – Mastadons ate pumpkins! The wild pumpkins of that time was bitter and maybe even toxic to humans. Initially the plant may have been used as containers or fishnet floats. Gradually (and in multiple locations) the cucurbitas were domesticated and we have the squashes we eat today.

1,400-Year-Old Gingko Tree Sheds a Spectacular Ocean of Golden Leaves – Even the smaller gingko trees can be spectacular. The shape of the leaves is unique too.

New treatment potential for heart attack sufferers – I was intrigued by the title but even more in statement that was buried more than halfway through the article: “Currently, 5-10% of the population is believed to have mildly elevated levels of bilirubin in their blood – a condition with no negative side effects….People with this syndrome have a 30-60% reduced chance of having cardiovascular disease…” I’m one of those 5-10%!

The grim and gory reality of surgery in space – It has some similarities to any remote exploration…with the added challenge of weightlessness.

Inside Each Flu Shot, Months of Virus Tracking and Predictions – I’ve been getting flu vaccines regularly for the past 10 years or so…and haven’t gotten the flu a single time. And now it is easier than ever – no visit to the doctor required now that pharmacies provide flu shots.

Big Fall at Mt. Pleasant

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This past week has been the peak for falling leaves at the Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm. On Monday it was breezy and leaves were flying. On Wednesday, I decided it was sunny and a good day to photograph the trees that still had some leaves. Today I am posting this before I make my trek there…and anticipating that there will be fewer leaves left on the trees.

It was relatively calm and the leaves were drifting down. This maple has a thick carpet of leaves that has fallen recently

Since the carpet still had a lot of color.

The sunshine and clear sky made the color seem all the more brilliant although the foliage was thinning.

Even the gingko has started dropping its leaves.

But in almost every direction there were some trees that had already lost their leaves – like the maple in the rain garden that was so brilliantly red just last week. I always think of the brilliant leaf colors as the last hurrah of the season before everything is hunkered down for winter.