The morning broke bright and clear, promising weather for a motorcycle ride. I had no particular plan, just the usual run over the Saddle Road to Hilo for lunch, and see where the wind and weather would take me. Things started well, I re-adjusted the valves on my new to me left head. I had replaced this one recently because of a valve recession issue, $150 for a "recently rebuilt" head off of ebay and I was good to go! Made it about halfway to the Saddle when I noticed my left switch was loose. No big thing, stopped and tightened it up and continued on. While in the Saddle (in the saddle?) I kept looking at Mauna Loa to the south. I had planned enough ahead to pack some extra cold weather gear, water and energy bars in anticipation of an attempt at the summit, so I figured "what the heck, we go!" At the start of the turnoff from the highway the clouds didn't look too bad at the top of either mountain, there's no more snow on Mauna Kea:
...and while there were some big clouds over Mauna Loa, it didn't look like rain was in the offing. Note: these mountains are so big they create their own weather:
So up I went. At first, the road was headed more or less towards the top, but it started to veer more to the east across the left flank. There were several unpaved roads that headed off in the right direction, but no signs, so I kept to the pavement. Finally I reached a U-turn at what looked like a cell tower and headed up towards the summit. Note: the lava flows are getting progressively fresher the further up I go, with a tendency towards jagged black (aa) and smooth silver (pahoehoe) type lava.
The clouds were building around the summit, so I stopped to get a picture of Mauna Kea:
As I was sitting there putting on my extra warm gear, a truck came around the bend and one of the scientists from the solar observatory stopped and was kind enough to take my picture:
He said he was the only person on the mountain that day and that the end of the road was about 5 more miles. The road surface had been getting progressively worse the further up the mountain I went, with gravel, cinders, chuckholes etc. I'm standing on a red cinder road. Near the top I reached a section that had been recently re-paved. (this is around 11,000') Note the cracks across the road, these are from earthquakes. Note: in this shot you can just barely see the ocean through the haze above the lower cloud layer.
I finally reached the end of the paved road at the solar observatory. As you can see, the road continued on, but it was all cinders and very rough. I didn't want to chance a flat or fall, so instead I waited to see if the clouds would clear so I could get another shot of Mauna Kea.
It didn't happen, and I was starting to get cold, so I headed back down.
When I went to start the bike, the front brake cable broke! Unfortunately I don't carry a spare (I do now!) So I removed it to avoid losing any of the attachment pieces. Further on there was this odd formation in another pahoehoe flow, a 10' deep hole in the center of a lava channel. Not sure what caused it, but it looks like chunks were blown out of it and then covered by subsequent flows. 
This flow has the smoothest surface I've ever seen on pahoehoe, it must have been hot, so very liquid: 
Finally back down the mountain and headed on home: 
