The first was a rainy hike down to Pololū Valley. It had this epic Lord of the Rings- Middle Earth feel with the ocean, mist, and greenery.
Our second hike can only be called the hike from hell (or Mordor to keep up with the LOTRs references). We were convinced by the end that the tour company had to falsely advertise this hike in order to ensure people would still come.
We had no idea what was coming our way.
The hike consisted of 8 hours hiking through huge mud pits- many that went up to our knees- some up to mid-thigh. There were many jokes comparing it to "'nam". After about an hour in there was no way your shoes/clothes weren't ruined and you didn't have a bad case of trench foot.
Here is a picture of me trying to jump over said mud pit.
The cool part about the trip is that after 3 hours of hiking, we eventually got to the lava field which can truly did look like Mordor. Since we were with a private company and not the national park, we got to walk right on the lava field- some of it only formed 2 days before. Additionally, there were loud canon like methane blasts coming from where the edge of the lava field met the forest. We were warned to wear thick soled shoes as to prevent the bottoms of our shoes from melting through.
Poking hot lava.
Shoutout to my dad who stuck with me the entire way back even though I was dead last. He was not only encouraging but also made up songs about the "damn mud pit" and shamelessly pretended to be a mountain goat in front of the entire goat.
In addition to trench foot, I woke up to these babies the next day.
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