HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK — The closure of the main unit of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park due to the Kilauea eruption has directed more visitors to the previously less-visited Kahuku Unit, and with them a host of improvements.
Kahuku area manager Keola Awong said visitors to the Kahuku Unit have increased more than tenfold since the closure of the main unit. In April, 352 people visited the unit. In June, the first full month of the main unit’s closure, 4,458 people visited.
“It’s actually nice because people are coming in not expecting to see lava,” Awong said. “They’re just coming because they want to see the park.”
To accommodate the sustained influx of visitors to Kahuku, the park has increased the unit’s hours of operation. As of Wednesday, the Kahuku Unit will now be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.
Parks spokeswoman Jessica Ferracane said there has been discussion about whether the Kahuku Unit will expand its hours to the point of being open seven days a week, but said such a change, if it occurs at all, will not be anytime soon.
In the meantime, the closure of the main unit has allowed the park to direct more resources toward needed maintenance and additional projects at the Kahuku Unit, Ferracane said.
“We’ve been able to make significant repairs to Kahuku Road,” Ferracane said, saying the park has replaced and regraded the gravel on the road that leads into the Kahuku Unit from Highway 11, and improved the ditches on either side of the roadway.
Awong said the road was also widened in places and brush was cleared from the sides of the road to improve visibility.
In addition, the park installed new features including new gates at park entrances and new wheelchair-accessible ramps at the unit’s facilities.
Ferracane said the park also is introducing new activities at the unit to attract additional visitors. Most significant was the opening of a new hiking trail, the Pali o Ka‘eo, last month.
“People seem to like the new trail,” Ferracane said. “It’s a real workout! You wouldn’t expect a two-mile hike to be that strenuous, but there’s so much rolling hills that it’s a workout even for experienced hikers.”
Awong said the Pali o Ka‘eo trail was planned well before the closure of the main unit, but was only completed after the eruption.
A second new trail, a walking trail to the Forested Pit Crater, is currently in development, Awong said, saying she hopes the project will be completed by Sept. 16. The Forested Pit Crater was closed to the public in 2017 to prevent the spread of rapid ohia death from the nearby woods.
Residents concerned about the future of the park, meanwhile, are encouraged to attend a series of community meetings throughout the next several day on the status of the park.
The meetings will take place at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the Volcano Art Center’s Niaulani Campus in Volcano, and at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Kahuku Unit, just past the 70-mile marker off Highway 11.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com