I had heard about mysterious lake near the summit of Mauna Kea so I went there. There was snow in the shadow, though it was the middle of June.
上から下がっていく道と、下から上がっていく道があって両方とも約1.6kmです。帰りに上りは辛いと思い、下から上る道を取りました。実はこれが間違い。後でちゃんとした地図を見たら高度差が三倍ぐらいあり、しかも薄い空気になれていない歩き始めが登りだと辛いこと辛いこと。一時間以上かかりました。
「ここはハワイアンにとって神聖な湖なので、泳いだり、ボート遊びをしたり、ケルンを積んだりしないこと」という看板が。昔、ハワイアンが子どものへその緒を投げ込んで、健康を祈った場所で、この湖は底なしだと考えていたそうです。
There were two routs, down from upper place and up from the lower parking. Both are same distance, about 1mile. I thought it might be hard to clime when return, so I chose lower parking rout. But it was big mistake they were same distance but difference of latitude was three time higher than another rout and it was terrible hard to clime up at the beginning of walking because I did not use to thick air. I took over 1 hour.
There was a board like this. Old Hawaiians offered the umbilical cord (piko) of new born baby into the lake
to pray his health. Some one does now. It was thought as bottomless.
博物館で見るような火山弾がいたるところにごろごろしています。
There are many volcanic bombs which we can see in the museum around there.
やっと見えてきたのは、まるで水溜りといったようなものです。
After the hard trial I found the lake but it looked like a puddle.
近寄ってみると小さいけれど(約1300坪)、堂々たる湖(池?)です。高度は3968mで、アメリカで最も高いところにある湖です。
問題はなぜこんなところに恒常的な湖があるかということです。火山礫の大地は保水力がありません。ですからハワイ島には日本のような温泉がありません。湖もほとんどありません。その上、天文台が集まるほど晴天の多い場所で、大量の雨も期待できません。この水は何処から?
答えは次回に。
When I approach, it was small (1.5acre) but surely the lake (pond?) It is the highest lake in the USA at the 13020 feet high.
The question is why there is a permanent lake on such place. Lava rock cannot hold water, so there is few lake and hot spring in the Big-Island. Besides ratio of fine days are very high so many astronomical observatories gathered here. It means it cannot expect much rain.
How to keep this lake. Answer will be given next.