Ka`u News Briefs Wednesday, March 1, 2017

THE FAMED KA`U FOOTPRINTS were likely left in the 1700’s by Hawaiian families traveling between Ka`u and Puna, rather than by warriors caught in volcanic ash raining down on the Ka`u Desert. That is the new evidence from the footprints with new educational displays accessible from Manu Iki trail in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park. The trailhead is makai of Hwy 11 between Pahala and Volcano, between mile markers 38 and 39.

Ranger Jay Robinson feels the texture of the famous Ka'u footprints on the life-size model, which weighs over 300 pounds. It was created by Joh Geigle from photos and measurements of the real footprints. It was brought to the shelter by  helicopter last month. Photo by Ann Bosted

   The new signage is illustrated by artists John Dawson and Kathleen Kam. Dawson is known for his wildlife paintings at Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park Visitors Center, on U.S. postage stamps, and in galleries. Kam is known for her wildlife and cultural murals at Ka`u High School, Ka`u Coffee Mill, Keauhou Bird Refuge, Volcano Store, Kamehameha School and in Hilo.
     One illustration for the footprints show people traveling along a trail and suddenly being covered with wet ash. The footprints may have been left during two separate ash-falling events in the 1700s.
     Near the trail, the park has installed a model of footprints themselves. This prevents visitors from touching the actual Native Hawaiian footprints that were were made in wet ash – not lava - during eruptions from Kīlauea in the 1700s. Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park replicated the footprints and visitors can touch the life-size model in order to appreciate them. In addition, several interpretive signs are added to the first quarter mile of the Mauna Iki trail that goes to the footprints, as well as a historic shelter.
     Park Ranger Jay Robinson and park volunteer George Jensen were installing interpretive signs along the trail last month. Jensen explained that these are the final touches in a long project that  included placing interpretive signs and displays in a structure built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1941.
      “The stone protective shelter was originally conceived as a way of conserving some outstanding examples of very old Hawaiian footprints, that were created in freshly fallen wet ash,” explained Jensen. Robinson added that park rangers were able to look at photos of the original protective shelter and restore or mimic many of the original features, but not the original catchment-fed water fountain, which does not conform to modern health standards.

A footprint made in wet volcanic ash in 1790. likely by a male adult. It is one  of 1,773 separate footprints belonging to at least 400 individuals that have been  documented by NPS archeologists, led by Dr. Jadlyn Moniz-Nakamura.  Photo by Ann Bosted

    “Protecting the trail’s highlight, the actual preserved footprints, required a completely new approach that would allow them to be viewed, yet not disturbed,” explained Robinson. A newly designed A-frame protective cover was set on a stone wall that dates to 1941. Three glass panels on one side now allow the public to peer in and look down to the ground and see some of the original footprints.  “The glass
ensures that visitors can see, but cannot touch the actual footprints in the ground,” explained Jensen.
     On the other side is the 300-pound model of the footsteps, created, from photographs and measurements of the footprints. Here, one can look at the exact replica and also touch without destroying the original footprints. This model had to be flown in by helicopter, as the historic shelter is now in a designated wilderness area, so closed to vehicles, including wheelbarrows, which can cause damage. There are three original cabinets for interpretive signs in the shelter, plus space for two new signs near the model. Two of the glass doors were restored by park carpenter Daniel Patao, then all the wood was repainted, making the shelter look as good as new.
     Robinson, who has fielded many questions from visitors, explains: “It just seems like for years ­we had gotten just about everything wrong about the footprints. First of all, the footprints were not made in hot lava! That’s just impossibly crazy! They were made in cool wet ash that quickly hardened like concrete. Secondly, most of the footprints were not made by Keōua’s army. And third, the footprints are along a very busy trail that connected Ka‘ū to Hilo and Puna. There were really a lot of people caught out there in a couple of pretty nasty eruptions. They survived and are the ancestors of many of my Ka‘ū friends, which explains a lot about why they are so tough today.”
     The most recent set of footprints were created in 1790 when Kīlauea erupted violently, covering all the land around with one to two inches of wet ash. This event was well documented in Hawaiian oral tradition, and was called Keonehelelei, the Falling Sands. Sand and small, pellet-sized ash were embedded in this ash layer before it hardened. While small and harmless looking, after falling from perhaps several miles high, they would have been extremely painful to encounter.

The explosion of ash that rained down on Ka`u not only left footprints, it injured and killed many people. Illustration by John Dawson

     This, however, is not the same ash layer that is enclosed under the glass. Hawaiian Volcano Observatory geologist, Don Swanson, has discovered that a similar terrifying event took place some decades earlier. The mountain erupted violently, spewing wet ash, on an earlier generation of island residents, immortalizing their footprints on this popular trading route. Again, there are large, man-size prints, others that were likely women, and even smaller prints from children traveling along-side their parents.
     Park archeologists, led by Dr. Jadelyn Moniz-Nakamura, have documented 1,773 separate footprints belonging to at least 400 individuals. A layer of gritty black sand can be found below, above and between the two layers. It is likely that the sand erupted from Kīlauea during the caldera collapse of around 1500. As the winds blew the older sands around, they buried much of first ash layer before the second layer fell in 1790 – in some places it is thick, and in others it is non-existent. Today, as the layers erode, the relentless winds of Ka‘ū continue to blow the sands, sometimes covering the footprints, and sometimes revealing them.

One of the many interpretive panels explaining the power of the volcano and the raining ash that helped form the footprints. Illustration by John Dawson

     When the footprints were first discovered by Ruy Finch of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in 1919, they were thought to be made by the army of Keōuakū‘ahu‘ua, the great war chief of Ka‘ū. As they were returning home from Hilo, they passed near the summit of Kīlauea during an extremely violent eruption. One third of the warriors (as many as 400 people) perished in a scalding pyroclastic surge that swept across them with hurricane force winds. With his army diminished by Pele’s wrath, Keōua never stood to fight again. Within a year he was sacrificed by Kamehameha at the dedication of Pu‘ukoholā Heiau.
    “The theory that they were all from Keōua’s army is now considered incorrect as the footprints were not made by people running or even hurrying,” said Robinson. “The footprints show their makers were walking both mauka and makai on a busy trail. Some footprints are made by people walking east and west. Both sets of prints – those made in 1790 and the sets made decades earlier – involve a similar mix of travelers - mostly men, but nearly half were women and children.”
    The exhibit artist John Dawson wanted to know what the wet dripping ash would look like. Robinson used himself as a Guinea pig. He mixed ash with water in a bucket and then dripped it over himself. He reported “at first it was cold, heavy, and got into your ears, eyes and other places that were uncomfortable. Most amazingly we found that in less than a 20 minutes, the wet ash had hardened and was unable to take any foot prints. We figured that the preserved footprints were likely made in just a few hours.” Where layers of ash are exposed along the Mauna Iki and Ka‘ū Desert Trails today, they have a rock-like hardness. “For so many footprints to be made in so short a time, the islands population of must have been large,” explains Robinson. (These ash layers are not to be confused with the far thicker and heavier Pāhala ash layers which are from around 16,000-31,000 years ago).
     The self-experiment has got Robinson wondering. “I’ve spent many hours just sitting out there near different sets of footprints and thinking about who made them and what they must have gone through. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of people were caught in what must have been absolutely terrifying eruptions. Just imagine, daylight turns to night as dark clouds crack with lighting and dump cold mud on you. Then as things just start to look up, rocks and sand begin falling. Those people must have all survived to have left so many footprints, but what a horrible day . . . and it will probably happen again someday ”.
     Now that the protective shelter has been hung with new, lavishly illustrated interpretive panels explaining the footprints, Robinson and Jensen, are erecting interpretive panels along the Mauna Iki trail to explain to visitors the significance of features they are looking at. Two panels explain an epic, but often forgotten, battle fought between the armies of Keōua and Kamehameha in the story of Kaua ʻo Kauaʻawa, the bitter Battle of the ʻAwa Rain. An additional exhibit is set further along the trail near a huge lava ball. The panel explains how lava balls form (they get bigger as they are turned by the flowing lava, in much the same way as snowballs grow) and where they come from.

George Jensen, a long-time National Park Service volunteer, hikes along Mauna Iki  Trail toward a new interpretive exhibit that he and Ranger Jay Robinson installed.  Photo by Jay Robinson

 Between the last panel and the shelter, hikers using the Mauna Iki trail make an abrupt change from hiking past younger ‘a‘ā lava from Mauna Loa (200 – 400 years old), to the lower, smoother, pāhoehoe flow from Kīlauea (400 – 750 years old). The Mauna Iki trail can be accessed from the Ka`u Desert Trailhead on Hwy 11, 9.2 miles from the park entrance to Kilauea crater in Volcano. There is pull out parking on the side of the road between mile markers 38 and 39. There is no charge for hiking the trail.
     With the improvements by Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, hiking in the Ka’ū Desert is further enriched as a learning experience with appreciation of the ancestors of the people of Ka‘ū.