A Big, Spooky Hole in the Ground

There is an open lava tube on the mauka (mountain-wards) boundary of the current farm. It opens like a mouth in the rocky slope and trees grow close enough to the hole to dangle their roots over its lip

Ukey, a rambunctious goat, is chained to one of these trees. She may be a no-good fence jumper but she has sense enough not to fall in. This unimpressive mammalian instinct may be more sense than K&C have between the two of them because they managed to completely fail to notice a giant hole in the ground despite feeding a nearby goat twice daily.

A slightly stunned K brought up the hole's existence to farmer S who, being not only “in touch with his land” but also not “completely oblivious to his surroundings,” was quite aware of it. S has been inside several times and had some interesting things to say about it.

Such tubes are common around Big Island. They are essential to the ongoing work of Pele but are mostly extinct on this side. Some are miles in length but this one is rather short. It used to run clear into a neighbors property but was truncated by an earthquake. The ancient Hawaiians used them as burial chambers and Cold War Americans used them as bomb shelters.

Because of the former use S advised K to cultivate an attitude of respect should he undertake exploration of the chamber, which he of course began to plan for immediately. It's quite safe down there, so little real planning was necessary and on his next day off he went right in.

There are two chambers. The left one is short because it caved in during the quake.

The most interesting thing about it, to K's mind, was how deep the root structures of the trees above go, in some cases penetrating through nearly solid rock.

The right chamber is far more extensive.

The ceiling is low enough that you have to duckwalk or scoot along on your butt. After squeezing almost shut it widens out and the ceiling rises up so that it's walkable again. It goes back a good 60 or 70 feet.

This is far enough to not only encounter a new root system but to also find yourself in complete darkness if you turn off your light.

Most readers of this blog know K to be a big fan of horror fiction and film and he prides himself on not spooking easily – at least in comparison to C. That said, it should be noted that his favorite horror movie of the past decade is The Descent which, in addition to being a masterpiece, is about young spelunkers discovering carnivorous monsters while exploring an underground cave. K will admit to thinking about that film a lot during his subterranean journey in total blackness but will leave the quality of his peace of mind – or lack thereof – to the imagination of the reader.

S had told K that there were bones in the cave and it was unknown whether or not they were human. Given the nature of traditional Hawaiian burial practices, K feels that he should be forgiven for mistaking the following rock formation for a human skull upon first glance.

Quite seriously though, it got less spooky after not too long. The temperature underground is pleasantly cool. Water condenses and drips down the walls. It is the only sound aside from your own breath. When K did encounter the bones it was a somber – not scary – experience. Equally somber, and completely unexpected, was the following memorial.

This box contains human ashes. They belong to a niece of one of the previous landowners. The tunnel comes too narrow for further progress not far after this resting place.