Hiking the Humuʻula Trail

You can walk to the summit of Mauna Kea. Almost nobody should. The Humuʻula Trail climbs roughly 12 to 13 miles round trip and about 4,500 to 4,600 feet, and it does all of it above 9,200 feet, topping out at 13,796 ft after eight to twelve hours with no meaningful acclimatisation built in. Technically it is Class 1 — a walk-up, no scrambling, no rope. The hazard is not the terrain. It is that the summit sits above roughly 40% of Earth’s atmosphere, where the air holds about 40% less oxygen than at sea level, and you are working hard in it. Rangers average eight to twelve hikers a day on this trail and have handled three rescues in a single week. If you are not an experienced, already-acclimatised high-altitude hiker, the right Mauna Kea day is a short walk at the Visitor Information Station and either a 4WD drive or a guided tour for the summit itself — and the Native Hawaiian-guided hike at 9,394 ft on this same trail is the version of the walk that almost everyone actually wants.

The Route: Distances That Disagree, and What to Plan For

Where it starts. Park in the Visitor Information Station lot at 9,200 ft (Halepōhaku) — the highest point two-wheel-drive vehicles are allowed to go. Walk up the paved Mauna Kea Access Road; the signed Humuʻula Trail turnoff is on the left, where the road makes its first turn. Sources describe it variously as about 100 yards, 200 yards, or “a few hundred feet to 1,000 feet” above the lot. In practice it is a two-to-five minute walk, and it is genuinely hard to spot in pre-dawn dark, so carry a headlamp and know to look left.

The numbers genuinely conflict. This is one of those trails where every source measures something slightly different, and it is more useful to report the spread than to pick a winner.

The takeaway: plan for a 12-mile, ~4,600-ft, 8-to-12-hour day and treat any faster time as a bonus that depends entirely on how well you handle altitude. A Colorado-acclimatised Backpacker writer did it in 6.5 hours; a Tripadvisor reviewer in under 5.5. Neither of those is a plan.

Two sections of it are road. About 600 ft of access road at the very start, and roughly a mile of summit road near the top — above about 13,200 ft, at the Ice Age Reserve boundary, the trail effectively joins the road to the high point around 13,700 ft.

Surface. Loose cinder, ʻaʻā and pāhoehoe lava, and scree. The first two miles are the steepest, gaining over 2,000 ft. Above 10,000 ft the route is marked by ahu (cairns) and reflective posts, and the turnoff onto the summit road is frequently unmarked because the signs get stolen.

Segment by segment:

1. Road start (~600 ft). Paved and graded access road from the VIS to the signed trailhead on the left.
2. Initial cinder ascent, miles 0–2. The steepest section, over 2,000 ft of gain on firm dirt turning to loose cinder. This is where under-prepared hikers are already struggling, around 10,000 ft. A hunting area lies to the left — stay on trail.
3. Alpine desert and lava flows, miles 2–4. ʻAʻā, pāhoehoe and scree, marked by ahu and reflective posts. The Keanakākoʻi adze quarry complex lies in this broad zone, roughly 11,000 to 12,400 ft.
4. Lake Waiau junction, ~13,000+ ft. A spur drops into the Puʻu Waiau cinder cone to Lake Waiau at 13,020 ft; the Humuʻula and Lake Waiau trails intersect here.
5. Onto the summit road, ~13,200 ft. At the Ice Age Reserve boundary the trail meets the road. At the split, going right is the most direct route up. Roughly a mile of road walking with very little shoulder — watch for descending vehicles.
6. Final approach, ~13,700 ft. From the road’s high point near the observatories, a short 5-to-15-minute walk of about 100 ft of rise reaches the summit ridge. A sign at the base of the true summit cone, Puʻu Wēkiu, asks visitors not to climb the final few metres out of respect. Stop at the permissible point, about 10 to 12 ft below the actual high point.

Registration, Rules and What Is Actually Prohibited

There is no fee and no formal permit, but there are real rules and they are enforced.

• Registration at the VIS is mandatory under Hawaiʻi Administrative Rules Chapter 20-26, effective January 2020. Fill out the form, hand it to a ranger or drop it in the registration box, and sign out on your return. Rangers use it to know who is on the mountain.
• The buddy system is required. Solo hiking is strongly discouraged by both the rules and the rangers.
• Designated trails only: the Humuʻula Trail, the Summit Access Road, the Lake Waiau trails, and Poliahu. Casual visitors are asked to enjoy the true summit respectfully from a distance.
• Off the summit within 30 minutes of sunset. The summit area is closed from 30 minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise — the same rule that shapes every guided evening up there, covered in the summit access and driving guide and the sunset guide.
• No camping or overnight sleeping anywhere on the mountain. No fires or stoves, no drones, no pets except service and hunting dogs, no smoking, alcohol or drugs.
• Age and health limits. Those under 13 are discouraged or prohibited above the VIS. Pregnant people, anyone with heart or respiratory conditions or high blood pressure, and anyone who has SCUBA-dived in the previous 24 hours should not go above the VIS at all.
• Invasive-species prevention. Clean your gear and footwear — there is a boot-brush station — and expect muddy vehicles to be turned away.
• Weather discretion. Hiking is discouraged when bad weather is occurring or forecast, and rangers close the trail and road at their discretion. One AllTrails reviewer was turned back on day one for rain and snow; Trailforks logged the trail “Closed / Red — Wet” on multiple dates in October 2025.

Trail status is not guaranteed on any given day. Call the rangers on 808-934-4550 before you go, and the road-conditions line on 808-935-6268.

The Altitude Problem

This is the heart of it. The summit sits above roughly 40% of Earth’s atmosphere, where the air holds about 40% less oxygen than at sea level, and most Hawaiʻi visitors arrive from a beach that morning — a pressure gradient steeper than a skier faces on day one at a resort.

Why hiking is more dangerous than driving to 13,796 ft. Exertion dramatically increases oxygen demand at exactly the moment supply is lowest. A driver sits. A hiker climbs 4,600 ft. And there is no acclimatisation built into the day: the standard mountaineering rule — once above about 9,800 ft, gain no more than roughly 1,000 ft of sleeping elevation per day, with rest days — is impossible to honour on a single-day ascent. Here you ascend fast and work hard, which is the worst combination available.

AMS, and what it becomes. Acute mountain sickness presents as headache, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, breathlessness, impaired judgment and loss of coordination. It can progress to High Altitude Pulmonary Edema — fluid in the lungs, breathlessness at rest, cough, blue lips — and High Altitude Cerebral Edema — fluid in the brain, ataxia, confusion, irrational behaviour, coma. Both are potentially fatal, and the only reliable treatment is immediate descent, plus oxygen and medical care.

The official acclimatisation minimum is a legal floor, not a safety plan. Thirty minutes at the VIS is what the rules ask for. Realistically, spending a night at mid-elevation — the cabins at Mauna Kea State Recreation Area sit at about 6,500 ft — helps, though it remains imperfect preparation for a peak more than twice that height. Consult a doctor; acetazolamide is sometimes used. Backpacker’s guide consulted Dr Peter Hackett, a leading high-altitude medicine expert, whose central advice is simply to go up slowly and descend at the first serious sign of trouble.

The descent is also dangerous. Fatigue and impaired judgment on loose, ankle-rolling terrain make the downhill the more hazardous half for many people. AMS-related loss of coordination plus a rocky trail is how ankles break and how hikers end up benighted.

The “summited but too exhausted to descend” trap. Rangers describe experienced hikers who reach the top and are, in their words, defeated by the mountain — unable to get themselves down safely. That is the scenario behind several of the rescues below.

Documented incidents. These are the publicly reported cases, and they are worth reading in full rather than summarising away.

• Death, December 2007. Brian Patrick Murphy of Plymouth, Michigan, aged 67, “left the visitor’s center at the 9,200-foot-level at about noon wearing only a light shirt and slacks” on 5 December 2007, intending to hike the Humuʻula Trail toward Lake Waiau — “despite warnings from a state ranger” and a forecast snowstorm, per Big Island Now. His remains were found on 30 July 2013 at roughly 12,000 ft, about half a mile from Lake Waiau. It is the clearest documented hiking and exposure fatality on the mountain.
• December 2021. UH Maunakea Rangers and U.S. Army Pōhakuloa crews “trekked for about a mile through heavy snow and sleet” to rescue a 64-year-old lost hiker in whiteout conditions at 13,000 ft, reaching him about 7 pm in a “small cave in between Waiau Lake and Maunakea Access Road.” He had “put down the wrong contact number on his registration form” (UH System News). Rangers handled three rescues that week, including two stranded summit hikers, one of them an experienced hiker who “got defeated by the mountain.”
• June 2019. A 68-year-old Arizona man fractured his femur near 12,500 ft when “unstable terrain gave way” while he was taking a photo, about a mile from the nearest trail. A combined 13-person team carried him nearly two miles in a litter, and per Hawaii News Now crews “could only move about 10 feet at a time before stopping to catch their breath due to the high altitude.”
• February 2021. A man in his twenties was “separated from his group and slid 700 feet down ice slope and could not get back up,” in “the beginning stages of hypothermia,” and was extricated with rope systems (Hawaii County Fire Department via Big Island Video News). Over one snowy weekend that season, four people needed medical attention — two injured in snow play, two with altitude sickness — plus two car accidents.

Help is slow. Per the Center for Maunakea Stewardship, the summit is dangerous because of “extreme altitude and weather conditions, and emergency services may be two hours away because of its remote location.” Rangers patrol 365 days a year and average eight to twelve hikers a day on the trail.

One honest note on the record. No verified case of a death caused directly by HAPE or HACE on Mauna Kea appears in the public record; official warnings describe altitude sickness as “potentially fatal” rather than citing a specific altitude death here. The 1996 Subaru Telescope construction fire that killed three workers and the 2022 New Year’s Day crash that killed a child on the Access Road were workplace and traffic deaths, not hiking incidents. Treat the risk as real and documented rather than as folklore, and do not let the absence of a headline case read as reassurance.

Other Experiences You Might Enjoy

The Humuʻula Trail is one line on a much bigger island. Nearby and on the same nights: summit sunset-and-stargazing tours from Hilo, Kona and Waikoloa; Native Hawaiian-guided hikes on the lower Humuʻula Trail at 9,394 ft; telescope and astrophotography sessions at dark sites along Saddle Road and near the Maunakea Visitor Information Station; day hikes in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park across Kīlauea Iki and out to the Puʻuloa petroglyphs; the coastal descent into Pololū Valley; Akaka Falls and the Hāmākua coast; and Kona coffee farm and Punaluʻu black-sand beach stops on the leeward side.

Water, Food and Self-Sufficiency

There is nothing on this trail. No water, no shade, no shelter, no restrooms until the summit parking area, and no reliable way to call for help.

• Water. The VIS is the last source. Official guidance is about 500 ml (16.9 oz) per person per hour — which for a ten-hour day implies four to five litres, roughly 8 to 11 lb of water on your back. Many trip reports carry only two or three litres, and rangers have told hikers plainly that two litres is not enough.
• Calories. High output in cold, thin air burns fuel fast. Carry dense, easy-to-eat snacks you will actually want at 12,000 ft, when appetite tends to disappear.
• Layers. Temperatures near the top are often in the 20s to 40s °F even in “summer,” and winter winds can exceed 100 mph. Carry insulation, a wind and rain shell, a hat and gloves.
• Sun. UV is intense at altitude. Sunscreen, sunglasses, and sun-protective clothing.
• Navigation and light. Map, GPS, and a headlamp — early starts happen in the dark and the summit-road turnoff is often unmarked.
• Emergency kit. First aid, an emergency shelter or bivy, and extra layers.
• Communication. There is no cell service above the VIS — emergency calls only, and even those are unreliable. A satellite messenger is wise. One public emergency phone sits at the UH 2.2-metre telescope near the summit.
• Waste. Pack out everything, including human waste.

Weather and When to Go

• Best months: April through October, the drier season, with more stable weather and less snow and ice.
• Winter turns this into mountaineering. Storms deposit up to about two feet of snow in January and February. When ice is present on the trail, this is no longer a hike, and you should not be on it without the equipment and skills that implies.
• Conditions change fast. Whiteouts, freezing temperatures and extreme wind can arrive within an hour, and this is the driver of most rescues on the mountain.
• Wind. Hiking is not advised above about 50 mph. The summit is among the windiest places in Hawaiʻi.
• Start very early — before dawn, or by about 6 to 7 am — to finish well before sunset and beat the afternoon. Starting after 9 to 11 am is a poor decision that compounds all day. Set a personal turnaround time before you leave the car and honour it regardless of how close the summit feels.

Descending: The Road, and the Hitchhiking Question

Plenty of hikers climb on foot and hope to ride down. Be honest with yourself about that plan before it becomes the plan.

Descending via the summit road rather than retracing the trail is common, is easier on the knees, and adds roughly a mile. Rangers acknowledge that hikers do it.

Catching a ride is neither reliable nor sanctioned. Commercial tour vans generally will not take hikers, because of UH commercial-permit and insurance constraints — only UH-permitted operators may run tours up there, and UH is not issuing additional permits. Some private motorists do give lifts, and trip reports mention catching one, but that is informal hitchhiking, not a plan, and it is a particularly bad plan to be relying on against a hard 30-minutes-after-sunset deadline.

The dependable option is a vehicle shuttle arranged with a companion — one driver with a proper 4WD and rental-contract clearance meets you at the summit or drives down separately. Absent that, plan to hike both ways and budget the full time. The self-drive versus guided tour breakdown covers what “rental-contract clearance” actually means, because most Big Island rental agreements prohibit the summit road outright.

The Short Walks Most Visitors Should Do Instead

For the overwhelming majority of visitors, these are the right choice, and none of them is a consolation prize.

• Puʻu Kalepeamoa (Sunset Hill), at the VIS, 9,200 ft. About 1.0 mile out and back, with longer loop options — short but steep, with big views over the Saddle and the best sunset vantage that does not require 4WD. Still at altitude, so go slowly. The Visitor Information Station guide covers the facilities and the evening programme.
• ʻĀhinahina (silversword) enclosure, near the VIS lot. A very short walk of about 0.2 mile to see the rare endemic Mauna Kea silversword. Best when blooming.
• Puʻu Huluhulu, at the Saddle Road junction, ~6,500 ft. A roughly 0.9-mile forested kīpuka cinder cone directly across from the Access Road, with native plants and birds and views of both Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. An excellent acclimatisation warm-up the day before a bigger effort. Not to be confused with the Puʻu Huluhulu inside Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.
• The summit-area short walk, with 4WD or a tour. From the summit parking area it is about half a mile toward the summit ridge. Do not climb the true summit cone; enjoy the view from the permissible point.
• The Lake Waiau spur from the summit road. See the next section.

Lake Waiau

The short route. From a pullout on the summit road above the 6-mile marker, near Puʻu Haukea, the walk drops into Puʻu Waiau — about 1.2 miles round trip with roughly 375 ft of gain, with AllTrails logging 1.4 miles. Every step of it is above 13,000 ft. You need a 4WD to reach the trailhead. No permit, but register at the VIS and stay on the trail.

Via the Humuʻula Trail. From the summit-road parking, cross to the Lake Waiau trail, hike about 0.6 mile to the Humuʻula junction, then take the short spur into the cinder cone.

Why it matters. At 13,020 ft this is the only alpine lake in Hawaiʻi and one of the highest lakes in the United States. It is a wahi pana, a sacred place: ancient aliʻi deposited the piko — umbilical cords — of newborns here, and the lake was understood as a portal between earth and the heavens.

The rules are absolute. No swimming, no wading, no watercraft, no rock stacking, and do not disturb offerings. Drones are banned.

The water level is highly variable, and this surprises people. On 26 September 2013 the USGS measured what was left of the lake at just 114 square metres — about 1,200 square feet — and nowhere more than eight inches deep during a severe low. The same bed has held 5,000 to 7,000 square metres over the past two centuries, and later visitors have found it refilled. Check current conditions rather than expecting a postcard.

Where Mauna Kea Fits Among Big Island Hikes

Honest one-liners, with the access caveats that matter in 2026.

• Kīlauea Iki Trail, Hawaiʻi Volcanoes NP. About 3.3 to 4 miles as a loop, 400 to 700 ft. The island’s best all-round hike — rainforest rim down onto a solidified 1959 lava lake with steam vents. Moderate. Park entrance fee. Our volcano tour guide covers what the park is delivering right now.
• Devastation Trail, HVNP. About a mile round trip, paved and easy, through cinder-buried former ʻōhiʻa forest. Accessible to almost everyone.
• Puʻuloa Petroglyphs, HVNP. About 1.4 miles round trip, easy to moderate over lava to roughly 23,000 petroglyphs viewed from a boardwalk. No permit, park fee applies, stay on the boardwalk.
• Napau Trail, HVNP. A long lava-and-rainforest trek past Mauna Ulu. Hiking beyond Mauna Ulu requires a permit from the Kīlauea Visitor Center, and conditions change with eruption activity.
• Pololū Valley. About 0.9 mile each way, steep at roughly 340 ft, down to a black-sand beach. Moderate; the lookout is open.
• Waipiʻo Valley. Iconic, and heavily restricted in 2026. The county emergency rule — renewed roughly every 60 days, with the version signed 1 July 2026 running through 2 September 2026 — closes the road to all pedestrians and to non-resident vehicles. The lookout is open; the valley floor is by permitted tour only. Do not plan to hike down.
• Green Sand Beach / Papakōlea. About 5.5 miles round trip, 275 to 350 ft, fully exposed and windy. Moderate. The “shuttle” 4WD rides operate on Hawaiian Home Lands and are not sanctioned — hike it or skip it.
• Captain Cook Monument Trail (Kaʻawaloa), Kealakekua Bay. About 3.8 miles round trip and 1,300 ft — deceptively hard, because you descend first and climb 1,300 ft back out in full sun. Superb snorkelling at the bottom. Strenuous.
• Mauna Loa summit trail. The harder alternative: remote, above 13,600 ft, multi-day, permits and cabins required. Experienced, prepared mountaineers only.
• Akaka Falls. A 0.4-mile paved loop, easy, to a 442-ft waterfall. The gentle counterpoint to everything above. State-park entrance fee.

Where Mauna Kea sits in that list: it is not a scenic day hike like Kīlauea Iki. It is a mountaineering-adjacent endurance effort whose reward is the accomplishment and the otherworldly alpine desert, not gentle beauty. Choose it for what it actually is.

Cultural Protocol on the Mountain

Hikers move slowly through the cultural landscape and encounter far more of it than drivers do, which makes protocol more than a formality here.

• The density of sites is high. The upper mountain holds ancient trails, numerous shrines and ahu, and both confirmed and suspected burials of aliʻi and kahuna. Rock pilings that look natural may be human-made markers or altars, and they are protected by law.
• Keanakākoʻi adze quarry is a National Historic Landmark and the largest primitive quarry in the world, worked from around 1000 A.D. Do not collect, move or disturb any stone or artefact.
• Lake Waiau is sacred. Do not enter the water; do not disturb offerings.
• Puʻu Wēkiu, the true summit. Cultural practitioners ask that visitors not climb the final summit cone. Stop at the permissible point.
• Do not build rock stacks. Hiker-built cairns are a genuine problem on this mountain: they confuse the cultural landscape, blurring real ahu with tourist stacks, and they disturb habitat.
• Stay on the trail to protect fragile alpine habitat and the endangered, endemic wēkiu bug (Nysius wekiuicola), which lives among the summit cinder and exists nowhere else on Earth.
• General posture: quiet respect — rangers have had to ask visitors not to film social-media dance videos at the summit altar — leave no trace, and pack out everything.

The Honest Verdict: Who Should Actually Do This

• Experienced, already-acclimatised high-altitude hikers: yes, with an early start, proper gear, registration, a buddy, and turnaround discipline. For you it is a long but non-technical Class 1 walk-up.
• Fit hikers with no altitude experience: discouraged. Sea-level fitness does not protect you from AMS, and several of the people rescued here were fit. If you go anyway, spend a night at mid-elevation first, go slowly, and be genuinely willing to turn around.
• Casual visitors: no. This is not a bucket-list “I’ll just try it and see” hike.
• Families and children: no. Under-13s are prohibited or discouraged above the VIS. Do the VIS walks instead.
• Anyone who mainly wants to say they reached the summit: drive it with a 4WD and rental clearance, or take a summit tour, and do a short walk up top. You reach the same view without the risk. The Mauna Kea Summit Sunset & Stargazing Tour — $289, 4.8 stars across 738 reviews, the most-reviewed Mauna Kea product on the platform — is the mainstream way to do that, and the operator-by-operator comparison sets all seven permitted companies side by side.
• Anyone who wants the walking without the danger: the Mauna Kea Hike & Stargazing with a Native Hawaiian Guide covers the lower Humuʻula Trail to 9,394 ft at $150, rated 4.9 stars across 41 reviews, and takes children from age 9. You get the trail underfoot, the cinder-cone landscape, and celestial-navigation storytelling from a Native Hawaiian guide — without the 4,600 ft of gain or the thin air at the top.

Bottom line: for the overwhelming majority of visitors, the right Mauna Kea day is a short walk at the VIS — Sunset Hill plus the silversword enclosure — time to acclimatise, and either a guided summit tour or a 4WD drive for sunset and stargazing. Leave the Humuʻula Trail to the small number of hikers genuinely equipped for a high-altitude endurance day.

If You Are Going: The Six Stages

1. Screen yourself honestly, first. Do you have prior high-altitude hiking experience, ideally above 12,000 ft, and no disqualifying health conditions? If not, stop here and pick a short walk. This is the single most important decision point on the page.
2. Pre-acclimatise. Spend a night at mid-elevation — the Mauna Kea State Recreation Area cabins at about 6,500 ft — and several hours at the VIS. Warm up on Puʻu Huluhulu the day before. The 30-minute VIS minimum is a legal floor, not a safety plan.
3. Time it right. Go April to October, on a day with winds under about 50 mph and no storm forecast. Confirm trail and road status the morning of — rangers on 808-934-4550, road conditions on 808-935-6268. Start before dawn.
4. Register and buddy up. Complete the VIS form with a correct emergency contact — a wrong number nearly cost a hiker his life in 2021 — use the buddy system, and sign out on your return.
5. Carry for full self-sufficiency. Target about 500 ml of water per person per hour, calorie-dense food, full layers, sun protection, a headlamp, first aid, an emergency bivy, and ideally a satellite messenger. There is no cell service and one emergency phone.
6. Set a hard turnaround time and honour it. Descend immediately at any sign of worsening AMS — headache with nausea, loss of coordination, breathlessness at rest. Do not count on hitching a ride down; arrange a companion shuttle or plan to hike both ways.

If you are like most visitors, do this instead: short walks at the VIS, then a guided tour or 4WD drive to the summit for sunset and stargazing, plus the 1.2-mile Lake Waiau spur if you have a 4WD. For a genuinely rewarding Big Island day hike, choose Kīlauea Iki.

Thresholds that change the recommendation. Any snow or ice on the trail moves this from hiking to mountaineering — turn it into a Lake Waiau spur or a VIS-only day. Winds forecast above about 50 mph, an active storm, or a ranger closure mean do not go at all. Any personal history of altitude illness means do not attempt the foot ascent.

What to Verify Before You Go

• Trail and road status. Set at ranger discretion and weather-dependent; Trailforks logged closures in October 2025. Check daily on 808-934-4550 and 808-935-6268.
• The registration requirement. Required under HAR 20-26; confirm the current VIS procedure, whether the form goes to a ranger or a box, and what it asks for.
• Distance, elevation and time. Sources conflict — one-way 5.6 to 6.9 miles, round trip 12 to 15, gain 4,500 to 4,914 ft, time 5.5 to 12 hours. Summit elevation is 13,796 ft per Hawaiʻi DLNR and the Center for Maunakea Stewardship, but 13,803 ft per USGS and Wikipedia.
• Lake Waiau access and water level. The spur is about 1.2 miles round trip; the water level is highly variable, with a near-dry low measured by the USGS in 2013.
• Waipiʻo Valley access. Closed to pedestrians in 2026 under a repeatedly renewed county emergency rule — confirm the current rule number and dates.
• Napau Trail permits and HVNP eruption-related closures, which change with volcanic activity.
• Any 2026 rule changes — commercial permitting, age limits — before you rely on anything here.
• The incident record. The Brian Murphy case of 2007 is the clearest documented hiking-exposure death; no verified pure HAPE or HACE fatality on Mauna Kea was found in the public record. Altitude risk is best understood as “potentially fatal,” consistent with official warnings, rather than as a specific altitude death you can point to.

This page deliberately does not re-cover the summit road and vehicle rules, tour operator pricing, Kona pickup logistics, VIS facilities, island-wide stargazing sites or the sunset window in depth — those live in the driving guide, the self-drive versus guided comparison, the operator comparison, the Kona tours guide, the Visitor Information Station guide, the guide to stargazing beyond the summit and the sunset guide respectively. If you want to know what is actually overhead once the sun goes down, our month-by-month night sky guide covers it, and the day-of walkthrough has the packing list.

A closing note on the mountain. Mauna Kea is sacred to Native Hawaiians, and the Humuʻula Trail walks through the middle of that. Move quietly, stay on the path, build nothing, take nothing, and leave the mauna exactly as you found it.