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"therebychance" is a personal web site to park images, photographs, writing, etc., with no objectives for now. There’s a bias toward Hawaii and Japan because that’s where I have spent most of my life.

Pololu Valley and Kohala Volcano: Part 1

sea cliff near Pololu Valley (from journal)

(Note: These two posts are missing images. To be completed.)

This writing had its beginning when I ran across this page in an old notebook, but what I thought would be reminiscing about my memories of Pololu Valley in North Kohala turned into an extended effort to overcome my ignorance about the islands I grew up in.

The first time I stood at the Pololu Valley Lookout, I couldn't understand why I had a sense of deja vu.  I thought it might have been from a childhood memory of past visits to the Big Island, but I don't think I ever went to the Pololu area until I was in high school.  Later I realized that it was because as a child, I had been to Waipio Valley on the Hamakua Coast a number of times which is also similarly flanked by sea cliffs.

While I lived in Hawaii, I never thought about the resemblance between the two, but on more recent visits to Pololu Valley, I became intrigued by these plunging sea cliffs as well as the valley itself.

 

It would be good here to share a description of Pololu Valley (Pololu translating as "long spear" in Hawaiian) which is one of the deepest cuts into Kohala Volcano.  On the rainy windward side of the Big Island, it was one of the richest areas of wetland taro cultivation in old Hawaii and belonged to the ahupua'a* of Pololu.  Archaeological surveys of the dunes near the mouth of the valley show the area was settled starting from the 12th century A.D.  There is even evidence of a heiau* used for religious and ceremonial purposes.

Wetland cultivation became more problematic as water became scarce after 1905 when the Kohala Ditch, a 35-kilometer (22-mile) engineered watercourse built with Japanese immigrant labor and mules, drew on the headwaters for sugar cane cultivation on faraway large plantations.

Today Pololu Valley is literally the end of the road for the 'Akoni Pule Highway (Route 270) where a lookout affords a panoramic view of the valley extending back into the mountain and the mouths of seven valleys along the coast from Pololu to Waipio.  The valley has been uninhabited especially since the devastating 1946 tsunami.

A black sand beach nearly one kilometer long fronts the valley, and further in, there is a pond fed by a stream leading back to the end of the valley.  Like the nearly vertical sea cliffs, the sides of the valley are steep which contrasts with the flat broad valley floor.  The black sand beach is lined with a thick forest of trees which, like the rest of the vegetation in the valley, is non-native.

The black sand is the result of constant wave erosion of exposed lava.  One can see the raw undercuts on the sea cliffs flanking the valley.  Besides sand dunes, there is a lot of rubble and debris on the beach ranging from driftwood of all shapes and sizes to round water-worn rocks.  These rocks are related to a pleasant tale which is the Hawaiian version of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Although Kamehameha had conquered Maui, Lanai, and Molokai by 1790, he still did not have command of his own island where his cousin and rival, Keoua Kuahu'ula, controlled the Ka'u region.  Told by a prophet from Kauai that he would unify the Hawaiian Islands only after he built a heiau dedicated to his war god on Pu'ukohola Hill in Kawaihae, he set upon the task.  One of the stringent requirements set by the prophet for the heiau was special water-worn rocks, and it is reported that a human chain 44 kilometers (27 miles) long including Kamehameha himself moved such rocks hand to hand from Pololu to Kawaihae.  Measuring 68 meters (224 ft.) by 30.5 meters (100 ft.) with 5 to 6 meter (16 to 20 ft.) mortarless walls, Pu'ukohola Heiau was completed in the summer of 1791, and Kamehameha invited Keoua to the dedication ceremony.  With the completion of the heiau, Keoua, evidently believing the prophecy that Kamehameha would become sovereign and that his fate was decided, performed a death purification ceremony by circumcising himself.  When Keoua came ashore at Kawaihae, he was killed and became the first sacrifice to Kamehameha's war god allowing Kamehameha to take sole control of the Big Island, and eventually, all Hawaii.

Because the difficulty of access, rough open seas (no protective reef), and treacherous riptides and strong currents that make swimming unattractive, most people will only make the descent into the valley for hiking or seclusion and back-to-nature camping as there are no facilities available.

Getting back to deja vu, this description of Pololu Valley's terrain could also be used for Waipio Valley, the only major differences being Waipio Valley's greater size and river.  Compared to the sea cliffs at Pololu, moving toward Waipio, the sea cliffs rise to more than three times as high at over 425 meters (1,400 ft.) 

I wanted to know if there was any reason for the similarities, and I was impressed to learn that these valleys were all part of the northeastern flank of Kohala Volcano that slid into the ocean in a massive landslide between 300,000 and 250,000 years ago.  

​

Debris from the slide went as far as the Hawaiian Deep 130 km (81 mi) away.  The diagram above shows the extent of the massive landslide of the northeastern flank of Kohala Volcano which Pololu Valley is part of.  "So the landslide accounts for the resemblance," I thought, but as it turned out, there was a lot more to it.  That's why this continues in Part 2.

Notes

Ahupua'a:  n.  A socio-economic land division of the ancient Hawaiians usually extending from the sea to the upland mountains generally following the natural boundaries of the watershed.  The name derives from the boundary marker of a heap (ahu) of stones on which was mounted an image of a pig (pua'a) or because a pig or other tribute was laid on the altar as a tax to the chief.  Nearly all natural resources to sustain a community would have been found within the ahupua'a and administered under a community governance system.
Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library, Hale Kuamoʻo

Heiau:  n.  Pre-Christian place of worship, shrine; some heiau were elaborately constructed stone platforms, others simple earth terraces.
Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library, Hale Kuamoʻo
 

Sources

Bishop Museum

Moberly, Ralph, et al., "Coastal Geology of Hawaii," U.S. Department of Commerce NOAA, 1964, p. 111-112.

Hawaiian Volcanism, Volcano World (web site), Oregon State University, (accessed November 2013).

MacDonald, Gordon, "Volcanoes of Hawaii," G MacDonald

Hazlett, Richard and Hyndman, Donald, "Roadside Geology of Hawaii," Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1996, p. 55-56, 

 

© Lawrence Taguma All rights reserved.

Laupahoehoe: Part Three

In it, she tells of how she survived by clinging to a door, and during all the hours she spent out on the ocean, she only encountered other people a few times, three boys who were dropped a raft by a plane but too far away to be noticed by them, a boy who tried to swim out to a passing ship and was never seen again, and the two boys found clinging to a tree....  As McGinnis stressed, being lucky not to have been seriously injured by rocks, trees, and other debris was more important than being a good swimmer.

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Laupahoehoe: Part Two

Poliahu called clouds to gather at the summit, each one gray with ice, and they cast snow fast and deep on the mountain....  The lava hardened into stone, and the lava streams were beaten back ino the depths of Mauna Loa and Kilauea.  The fire rivers narrowed and were driven downward so quickly that they leaped out from the land and became the prey of the ocean, one of them forming a peninsula resembling a leaf after which Laupahoehoe is named.  

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Laupahoehoe: Part One

One of the first things I learned as a child was never to run out onto the reef if the water receded unusually quickly and never be tempted by the stranded fish there.  It was a common theme through all the tsunami stories I heard starting with my mother.  In fact, the earliest recorded such incident in Hawaii was in 1837 when 62 people in Hilo lured by fish trapped on the reef by receding waters died as the tsunami came rushing in.

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