Ainapo Trail

From prehistoric times through 1916, the Ainapo trail was the customary route to the summit crater of Mauna Loa volcano. The trail was 34 miles long (almost 55 km); rose from 2,000 feet to 13,200 feet above sea level; and supplied shelter, water, and firewood to Hawaiians. Foreigners also used it afoot after 1794, and after 1870 rode horses and mules over it. Only the portion above the 11,650-foot elevation remains intact.

Prehistoric Hawaiians laid out the Ainapo foot trail to assure availability of shelter, drinking water, and firewood between their nearest permanent settlement, Kapapala village, and Mokuaweoweo, the summit crater. Kapapala village could be reached over easy-grade trails from the coastal Hawaiian settlements. Most Mauna Loa ascents by Hawaiians were made during summit eruptions, when the volcano goddess Pele was present, to honor her with chanted prayers and offerings; and perhaps at other times to honor a site she frequented.

From the records left by early foreigners, the Hawaiian Ainapo trail practices have been reconstructed. The Hawaiian style of ascent to Mokuaweoweo lay in moving upslope in easy stages to lessen fatigue and permit acclimatization to the increasingly rarefied atmosphere. The major stages were a series of overnight camps, each complete with small, warm, thatched houses and well supplied with food, drinking liquid, and firewood. In each camp, the elite were supported in the style of Hawai- ian high chiefs. The lesser stages consisted of frequent rest stops, perhaps in natural rock shelters, warmed by fires as necessary.

Hawaiians utilized two key campsites on the Adnapo, one at the upper edge of the forest (Camp 2), and one further upslope within a large lava tube (Camp 3) in the barren area. Camp 2, a temporary village of thatched houses built for each royal trip to the top, was in an area of high grass with timber adjacent. Camp 2's altitude was approximately 6,500 feet above sea level, and furnished house timbers, firewood and grass for thatching, and ground insulation (under sleeping mats) for the subsequent higher camps. Camp 3, in the large lava tube at about 7,450-foot elevation, furnished potable, and unfrozen, water for its occupants. Camp 3's water was also carried downhill to supply Camp 2, the main camp, and the trail headquarters. Fluids for drinking above Camp 3 came from coconuts, which are unspillable, remain liquid at subfreezing temperatures, and are easily transported. Food for the entire trail came from the numerous plantations of the Ka'u district.

Kapapala village, the trailhead, was probably below but near to the present site of Kapapala ranch headquarters. Between the trailhead and Camp 2, the Ainapo trail passed through savannahs and forests at an average grade of 5 percent. Camp 1 had a well and permanent small, thatched houses maintained through occasional use by bird catchers and canoe makers. No known written accounts exist of the operation, numbers, and locations of Hawaiian camps above the lava tube (Camp 3). For various reasons, the early foreign users of the Ainapo trail did not follow the Hawaiian trail usages above Camp 2. The grade of the Ainapo trail above Camp 2 averaged 7 percent.

Early accounts of the Ainapo by foreigners were made by Archibald Menzies in 1794, David Douglas (the naturalist) in 1834, M. J. Lowenstern in 1839, and the U. S. Exploring Expedition, under Wilkes, in 1840, which utilized the trail only above the 10,000-foot elevation. Wilkes refused to follow his Hawaiian guide to Kapapala village to start up the Ainapo. Leading a party of 300 Caucasians and Hawaiians, Wilkes took off in a trackless beeline toward Mauna Loa's summit, guided by a midshipman holding a compass. As a result, the U. S. Exploring Expedition was stranded for two nights on open lava at about the 6,000-foot elevation in winter. They camped ten miles east of Ainapo's water supply and lava tube. Water, sufficient for survival, was hauled ten miles over rugged lava fields in open-mouth vessels.

Usually over their polite protests, Hawaiian guides and porters were forced to travel routes not of their own choosing, and at paces at variance with their experience. Much unnecessary thirst, hunger, cold, altitude sickness, and snowblindness were suffered by both Caucasians and Hawaiians on the historic Ainapo trips which substituted western routes. or pace for the Hawaiian. Fortunately, not a man was lost.

About 1870, when mounts and pack animals became relatively cheap and numerous, the shelter, water, and wood attributes of the Ainapo trail became less important. This route remained popular, however, because it was the shortest access to the top both in time and distance. Pack animals shortened by days the round-trip time over the Ainapo and eliminated the supporting cadre of human porters. It took more than 100 Hawaiians to place Menzies atop Mauna Loa in 1794.

In 1916, the U. 5. Army pioneered a new trail to the summit to suit the needs of volcanologists headquartered at Kilauea volcano. In 1916, the summit of Mauna Loa, the Army-built trail, and the summit of Kilauea volcano were incorporated within Hawaii National Park, established by Congress that year. This gave the volcanologists and the public a federally controlled route to Mokuaweoweo. After 1916, for the next half-century, there were two trails to the summit, but the Ainapo received diminishing usage and was not maintained. Below the barren lavas, the savannah-forest areas through which the Ainapo passed became ranching country--private land through which public passage was discouraged. The Ainapo trail now lies abandoned, unmaintained, overgrown, blocked by barbed-wire cattle fences, and almost forgotten. The 1915 Army-built trail now handles the rare traffic and is the trail shown on the newer USGS quadrangle maps. The Ainapo trail is now out of business, except for the portion above 11,600, most of it within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.