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COURTESY HAWAI‘I VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK
Hikers walk past the restored Kilauea Iki Trail near trail marker No. 4.
COURTESY HAWAI‘I VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK
Hikers walking along the restored Kilauea Iki Trail.
Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park announced today visitors will be able to hike the entire Kilauea Iki Trail after crews restored sections of the trail damaged by the 2018 Kilauea eruption.
About half of the trail has been open to the public since April 19, but the four-mile hike was closed for repairs as a result of more than 60,000 earthquakes at the summit of the crater.
“The reopening of the entire Kilauea Iki Trail is one more example of how Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park continues the path to recovery from the 2018 Kilauea eruption and the associated seismic events,” said acting superintendent Rhonda Loh in a news release.
Financial support from the park’s nonprofit partner Friends of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, the park’s trail crew and trail crew members from other national parks made the repairs possible, park officials said.
“While the path to recovery is a marathon, not a sprint, we look forward to reopening more of the park in the months to come,” Loh said in a statement.
Kilauea Iki is a moderate to challenging 4-mile hike that dips 400 feet from the crater’s summit to the floor. It was a lava lake in 1959 with fountains spewing lava up to 1,900 feet high.
Sept. 22 marks the one-year anniversary of the park’s reopening after an unprecedented 134-day closure, park officials said.
Meanwhile, Byron’s Ledge remains closed due to damage from the Kilauea eruption.
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