action shots!

Taking gas samples in Halemaomao, the crater of Kilauea. Measured CO2 plus temperature - around 90 C! Gas masks are essential to avoid the "vog" but the temperatures are so hot that you start to sweat inside. Gross

All of my Mauna Loa gear - GPS, walkie talkie, giant palm pilot, really cool hat and 10' water hose. Getting anything out of my backpack is an ordeal.


Entering data! Although having the palm pilot makes recording data in the office easier, it has become a pain in the field. Batteries have limited life (~ 3 hours) plus more than once all my data has been randomly erased.

So I lost the pointy end of my bipods of the GPS unit in the middle of Mokua`weo`weo, caldera of Mauna Loa - black on black, almost impossible to find. Kelly and I hiked out the next day and searched a 600 m traverse to find them. I was giving up hope and started to imagine how much trouble I would be in (replacing them would cost hundreds) when I basically tripped over the pieces! Phew, disaster avoided.

Our new campsite - right in the middle of the road. The road is gated and only available to HVO staff, so we do not have to worry about blocking any traffic since we are the only people who drive up. Our truck, Frank the Tank (named after our boss and Old School) is such a beast that when driving down the mountain Kelly did not use any gas for half the trip. The 4-wheel drive is so powerful that it just pulls itself up the hills.