Hawaii has the longest lava tube in the world. It’s in this guy’s backyard.
A forest of tree roots in the main corridor of Kazumura. These roots are very sensitive, and care should be taken not to damage them when moving through the cave. Kazumura Cave on Hawaii Island, May 6, 2005.
Dave Bunnell / Under Earth Images/Wiki Commons
A world of caves exists beneath Hawaii’s surface that’s still relatively unknown. It’s been estimated that the islands are home to more than 800 caves. Some are big, some are small, some are underwater, and others are expansive networks of open lava tubes beneath volcanoes — but only a few are accessible to the public.
Of all the islands, the Big Island of Hawaii is the most renowned for its caves, such as Nahuku and Kaumana. But the most distinguished is on the east side of the island in the district of Puna, where Kazumura Cave can be found.
Kazumura Cave is the longest lava cave in the world. More than 40 miles long, it descends the east side of the Kilauea volcano to a depth of 3,614 feet. Lava once flowed through this ancient tube system that was active during the Ailaau eruption in the 15th century. Its name, Kazumura, comes from 1966 when one of its entrances (possibly owned by the Kazumuras) was designated as a fallout shelter.
Arched passages in the main tube show the classic lava tube shape. The floor was the crust on a former lava lake that fell inward as it drained from beneath. Kazumura Cave on Hawaii Island, Jan. 11, 2008.
Dave Bunnell / Under Earth Images/Wiki Commons
Today, the extensive cave system lies beneath hundreds of properties. Only a handful of the landowners have entrances, and very few of them (I could find only two) organize tours.
“I have one entrance,” Harry Shick, owner of Kazumura Cave Tours, tells SFGATE. “We hike through a canyon to get to where ceilings are anywhere from 32 to 36 feet. There’s just a whole bunch of stuff down there. This is the most geologically diverse cave I’ve ever been in.”
When Shick and his family first purchased the lot in the 1990s, they had no idea what lay beneath. “I was told about it when I was about ready to start the foundation for the house,” he says.
In 1995, a cave surveyor informed Shick and his family that the land they had been hand-clearing for two years had a cave underneath it. Once they found out there was an entrance on their property, they began exploring it “almost immediately.”
Kazumura Cave on Hawaii Island, Dec. 25, 2013.
Anita Gould via Flickr CC 2.0
On first entering, they couldn’t go very far. It ended in a black hole. They came back later with rope and descended 20 feet down the hole to find a beautiful passageway with crystals, lavacicles (the lava version of stalactites), and lava falls and cascades, where lava flowed vertically or down a slope.
They cleared trails and added ladders. Less than a year later, Shick was ready to give tours.
Hawaii passed a law that prohibits any more cave tours from being offered after 2002. Shick is one of the few who can organize them, and he’s been giving tours of Kazumura Cave now for almost 30 years.
His company offers three different guided experiences, ranging from two to six hours in duration. Shick doesn’t recommend one over the other, but the longer the tour, the more challenging it gets. The longest tour, called the Maze, requires bringing gear to rappel down a 37-foot drop he calls Eureka Falls.
Harry Shick guides people through Kazumura Cave on Hawaii Island, Dec. 25, 2013.
Anita Gould via Flickr CC 2.0
“In the two-hour [Lava Falls] tour, there’s lots and lots of features that I can show people. We go less than a third of a mile into the cave, and I explain a lot of the geology,” Shick says. “The four-hour [Pit Room] tour continues on where the two-hour tour turns around, goes a little over 1 mile into the cave. The features are spread out with bigger distances between them, so you get to see a lot more of the cave.”
He says the most spectacular formation is at the end, though, which he nicknamed the “Wow Formation.” It’s impossible to describe, he says, but tries his best. “Picture upside-down mushrooms that are kind of stuck together that have vertical, angled lines on the bottom and vertical blades on the top,” he says.
I pause, and I can tell he senses my imagination slowed to a confused stop. “I could attempt to describe this all day long, and you would never get it,” he says.
Collapse into a round lava lake after it drained. The source of the lava is the lavafall in the background. Kazumura Cave on Hawaii Island, May 19, 2016.
Dave Bunnell / Under Earth Images/Wiki Commons
The features in a lava tube are different from limestone caves because everything’s based on fluids, he tells me. For instance, there are lavacicles 20 inches long that were created from splashing on the ceiling. He also says that lava has more diversity. “It’s not just depositing something or eroding it, but it can be doing both at the same time,” he says.
Shick’s background is in physics, but he’s become passionate about lava cave geology for obvious reasons. “When we first started showing the cave, we knew nothing about lava tubes or caves in general; but with the help of our visitors we were able to piece together the processes that form and shape a lava tube,” Shick says on his website. He enjoys sharing the knowledge he has gained with everyone he meets, and he has also published a book on lava tubes.
Lava blades formed when the turbulent flow of the superheated air and gases rushing out of the skylight whipped the molten surface into fins and then froze them in place. It also oxidized the iron-containing minerals to a bright rust color. Kazumura Cave on Hawaii Island, Dec. 25, 2013.
Anita Gould via Flickr CC 2.0
Shick formed the Kazumura Cave Preserve in 2014 to educate the public and to help protect the cave from vandals. He started noticing that damage to Kazumura Cave was steadily increasing through the years, including in his section of the cave.
He takes a portion of the tour price as a donation, and funds collected are used for purchasing more land on top of the cave to prevent development or to gate cave entrances. It can also be used by researchers to further expand knowledge of the cave.
Shick considers Kazumura Cave to be a national treasure and wants to do what he can to take care of it. Guiding people through it is just one tool he uses to educate the public about it.
“I’m very blessed to have this. It’s the shortest commute I’ve ever had,” he says.
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