Lava, steam, and brand new ground. Kīlauea from the rim.

Persistence made these photos possible. For about six months I traveled to the park for work, on a USGS field station my company was building, and my visits never lined up with an eruption. Then one finally did. I checked the eruption status from the plane on my flight from Honolulu, entered the park at 7 a.m., parked at the cabins, and walked along the crater to an open spot to shoot.

Two things caught me off guard. The first was the noise. It sounded like a big jet getting ready for takeoff, followed by the sound of falling rock. The second was that I couldn’t pull myself away. I stayed for several hours, in awe of the power of the earth that’s usually hidden from view, and wrapped up just as the eruption was dying down.

I finished the morning with breakfast at Volcano House, imagining what it was like for Mark Twain when he stood at the same crater in 1866.