Hawaii Volcanoes National Park Backcountry Permits

Backcountry travel in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, managed by the National Park Service. The photographs run from the summit country down to the coast. One looks across a wide crater whose flat grey floor is ringed by low dark cliffs, with green forest growing right to the rim. Others cross bare lava: broad flows of black and pale rock and red cinder reaching to the horizon, and a small green corrugated-metal cabin standing on open cinder ground among them. Along the shore, low cliffs and black lava benches meet the sea, surf breaking over the rock and shallow pools left between the ledges. Camps there sit on dark sand under trees, sheltered by leafy branches and surrounded by a dense mat of green coastal vine, and a beach of pale sand runs between the lava with stacked stones set on it. Two frames show tents at these spots, one at first light with the ocean beyond, one at night under a palm with a bright moon and stars overhead.