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| Kilauea Cultural Festival | Ranger Led Activities | Special Programs | Visitor Centers |
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park is the site of two of the world's most spectacularly active volcanoes. In Mauna Loa's rugged high altitude wilderness area, visitors can inspect cinder cones, gaping chasms and barren lava wrought into fantastic shapes.
On Kilauea's more accessible slopes patches of vegetation thrive amid lava deposits. Here a forest can be observed in all of its formative stages, from early re-growth lichens and ferns to dense groves of mature trees.
Activities to consider while here are but not limited to: backpacking, camping, interpretive talks, nature walks, star gazing, slide shows and exhibits on volcanoes, hiking, and backcountry fishing. Rangers provide an array of scheduled walks and talks to interpret the park's natural and cultural resources. Educational programs for school groups are provided throughout the year on a reservation basis.
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park is opened 24 hours a day, year round. There are about 2.5 million visitors a year with summer, Christmas and Easter as peak visitation periods.
| Hours | Phone | Location | Available Facilities |
| 7:45 am - 5:00 pm Daily |
808-985-6000 | Located just inside the park entrance, Kilauea Visitor Center offers visitor information and exhibits. | Films and videos, highlighting the park's special features and current eruption, are shown in the auditorium from 9:00am to 4:00pm daily. A schedule of Ranger-led walks/talks is posted on the Ranger Activities bulletin board in the visitor center at 9:00am each morning. |
| Hours | Phone | Location |
| 8:30 am - 5:00 pm - Daily | 808-985-6000 | Located along Crater Rim Drive, three miles from the park entrance, the Thomas A. Jaggar Museum offers earth science displays and features murals depicting Hawai'ian culture. An adjacent overlook offers a panoramic view of Kilauea Caldera and Mauna Loa. |
After Dark in the Park programs are offered on Tuesday evenings, 2 or 3 times a month. Guest speakers offer a wide range of topics of interest including geology, biology, and Hawai'ian culture and history. The public is invited to attend these free programs. They are held in the Kilauea Visitor Center Auditorium. Here are a few examples.Check with the Kilauea Visitor Center for programs, dates and times.
| Title | Description |
| The Hawai'ian Islands as a Model Ecosystem | The Hawai'ian Islands support an extraordinary and well-defined range of climates and soil ages in a very small area. At the same time, the underlying geology, topography, and even species composition of Hawai'ian ecosystems can be held relatively constant. Hawai'i thus can be used as a model system that allows us to understand fundamental principles about how the world works. Peter Vitousek, Professor of Biological Sciences at Stanford University, was born and raised in Hawai'i and has been studying the Islands as a model ecosystem for 15 years. He describes what Hawai'ian ecosystems can teach us about controls of forest productivity and soil fertility around the world. |
| Hilo and Ka'u Remember the November 2000 Floods | Two or three feet of rain in single day is phenomenal, even by Hawai'i Island standards. During the wee hours of November 1 and 2, 2000, heavy rain in Hilo and Ka'u produced torrents of water that raged down normally dry channels, knocking out bridges and flooding homes. Roads were ripped apart, trees and soil were scoured away and boulders were washed from the mountains to the seashore. A year later, most residents have recovered to the point that they can listen to heavy rainfall without cringing. University of Hawai'i - Hilo hydrologist Jene Michaud presents slides and videos of the great flood. |
| Fire in the Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean | Sea turtles have existed since the time of the dinosaurs. But now they are plagued by a disease so dreadful that some biologists consider it the most serious epidemic now raging in the natural world. Pulitzer Prize nominee Osha Gray Davidson reports on the grim happenings in the world of the honu (sea turtle) in his new book, "Fire in the Turtle House: The Green Sea Turtle and the Fate of the Ocean." Together with eminent honu scientist George Balazs, Davidson followed the fates of particular turtles, discovering their surprisingly distinct personalities and why they inspire an almost spiritual devotion in the humans who come to know them. Join Davidson, in this special After Dark in the Park program, as he tells of the impassioned efforts of scientists, marine biologists, veterinarians, and others who are racing to save sea turtles from extinction by solving complex biological and environmental puzzles. |
| Hawai`i's Russian Adventure: A New Look at Old History | In 1816, King Kaumuali`i of Kaua`i signed an alliance with representatives from the Russian-American Company. They were to provide him with foreign ships and munitions to help him resist Kamehameha's expanding kingdom. Although the deal fell apart in 1817, a large stone structure, commonly known as "Fort Elizabeth," still can be seen in Waimea, Kaua`i as lingering testimony to this era. UH-Hilo Anthropology professor Peter Mills shares insights from his new UH Press book on the ethnohistory and archaeology of this fascinating site. Contrary to common interpretations of the site as a Russian fort, Mills emphasizes the ties between this structure and Hawai'ian history, particularly heiau, and the Hawai'ian Kingdom's continued development of monumental architecture in the 19th century. |
| John Keawe: A Tribute to Slack Key | John Keawe pays tribute to slack key music and the musicians who have perpetuated this uniquely Hawai'ian guitar style. Growing up on Hawai'i Island, John listened to his grandfathers play music on their porches and later developed his own distinct style. Since the late 1980s, his music has been nominated for many Na Hoku Hano Hano awards and he received an award for best slack-key artist for his "Mana'olana" CD in 1998. Join us for an evening of heart-felt music with one of Hawai'i's finest musicians. This program is produced by the University of Hawai'i's Statewide Cultural Extension Program with funding from the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. |
The annual cultural festival celebrates Hawai'i's native cultural heritage by encouraging visitor hands-on participation in traditional arts and crafts, music and games.
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park was established on August 1, 1916, "as a public park for the enjoyment of the people." An important purpose of the park is to perpetuate Hawai'ian culture and promote appreciation of its traditional values. The festival provides an ideal occasion for kupuna (elder) and keiki (child), and kamaaina (native born) and malihini (newcomer) to come together for a day of fun and sharing.
The festival will be held on the grass lawn fronting Kilauea Military Camp on Crater Rim Drive. Kilauea's weather at the 4,000' elevation can be hot and sunny, or cool and misty. Participants should wear sunscreen, a hat, and sunglasses, and bring a ground mat, lunch, water, and rain jacket.
The free festival is cosponsored by The Hawai'i Natural History Association and the Volcano Art Center. For more information call the park's division of interpretation at 985-6011.
The schedule for ranger-led walks and hikes is posted each morning at 9:00 a.m. on the Ranger Activities bulletin board in the Kilauea Visitor Center. Walks may be wheelchair accessible, beginning at the visitor center and ending with a spectacular view of Kilauea's caldera or may be longer hikes through a crater, lava tube, across fairly new lava to see lava trees, or to view Hawai'ian petroglyphs. Ranger-led walks enrich your knowledge of park resources and Hawai'ian culture.
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