Husband and I tackled this 12 mile round trip hike and reached the summit in 4 1/2 hours on a clear windless July day. We started at 9:30 am, didn't acclimate at the trail head at 11K feet because we got such a late start. Bad idea, but we made it albeit with headache the entire time. This route has horrendous footing thru loose lava rock, scree and uneven terrain the entire way (except for a brief stretch of sandy trail near the Olivine rocky area.) Also has 3 false summits, due to massive size of this mountain. Wish we had known this just for psychological reasons but we were determined to summit having had to turn back on a previous attempt due to timing. Whole thing took 8 plus hours. Toughest part was the last 2 .5 miles before the summit, between all those false summits and the worst footing on the route. Spectacular views at the summit of the massive ML crater, it looks big enough to contain all of San Francisco. Please respond if you have hiked this route, saw virtually no one else either time we did this hike.
buffidelahaye - Jul 8, 2011 5:17 pm - Hasn't voted
mauna loa observatory trailHusband and I tackled this 12 mile round trip hike and reached the summit in 4 1/2 hours on a clear windless July day. We started at 9:30 am, didn't acclimate at the trail head at 11K feet because we got such a late start. Bad idea, but we made it albeit with headache the entire time. This route has horrendous footing thru loose lava rock, scree and uneven terrain the entire way (except for a brief stretch of sandy trail near the Olivine rocky area.) Also has 3 false summits, due to massive size of this mountain. Wish we had known this just for psychological reasons but we were determined to summit having had to turn back on a previous attempt due to timing. Whole thing took 8 plus hours. Toughest part was the last 2 .5 miles before the summit, between all those false summits and the worst footing on the route. Spectacular views at the summit of the massive ML crater, it looks big enough to contain all of San Francisco. Please respond if you have hiked this route, saw virtually no one else either time we did this hike.