Behind the Scenes: Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park

HOWDY PARK PEOPLE! Our conversation with Rhonda Loh, Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park Superintendent, is LIVE. Rhonda has been at HAVO (the park’s abbreviation) for over 30 years so shared with us a wealth of knowledge. It seems she continues to fall more in love with the park each day, how cool! Listen NOW on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts 🪩🎉

Check out the video version of the episode on YouTube and Spotify. Let me know what you all think!

Keep reading to hear my favorite moment from the interview, a new thing I learned and an interesting fact about Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park all from my interview with Hawaiʻi Volcanoes Superintendent, Rhonda Loh!

Favorite Moment from Interview with Rhonda — Listen here 

• Eventful First Day on the Job: The way Rhonda describes her first day on the job makes it evident just how much she loves her park, and that’s why this is my favorite moment from our conversation. At 10 p.m. the night before her official start day, she received a call from the US Geological Survey (USGS) that one of the volcanoes was erupting. She, the chief ranger, and whatever rangers they could assemble scrambled to the park. When they arrived, people were already there because word of mouth spreads pretty fast. The roaring of the fissures as they erupted and the iconic glow in the sky from the lava lake created a breathtaking scene. As the park was coming out of COVID, there also hadn’t been recent gatherings, so there was a special buzz in the air as everyone experienced this together.

  • As I mentioned, word spreads fast, and people even track volcanic activity at the park and will fly from all over the world on short notice to witness the phenomenon in person!!

One Thing I Learned Interviewing Rhonda

• How To Restore A Rainforest: Rhonda, in addition to being the superintendent, has a PhD in Plant Ecology, so she shared insights from her dissertation and how it has been applied to the park. Her research focused on restoring areas that have been completely invaded by fire tree. How do you remove them and create an environment that favors the reestablishment of native rainforest rather than other weeds or fire tree? One of the more interesting takeaways was that clear-cutting (meaning you remove all the fire tree at once) results in a lot of weeds growing back, overcrowding native plants. However, if you slow-kill the fire tree by girdling the trunk and allowing it to defoliate and die over the course of a year or two, you tend to get more native rainforest species returning.

Interesting Fact About Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park

• How One Manages and Monitors an Active Volcano: Having two active volcanoes within the park boundary is something very unique to Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park compared to the rest of the park system. Not only does it add many complications (including damage from earthquakes), but monitoring the volcanoes for signs of activity and adjusting plans accordingly is a full-time endeavor. Rhonda partners very closely with the USGS, which has a field station within the park, measuring activity 24/7 and providing updates and predictions to the park staff. They even have a camera where you can see the volcano in real-time — check it out here!

Maddie’s Outdoor Obsessions

This section will always highlight my favorite picks from the past week in the outdoor & adventure world

• Locations Unknown: I learned about this podcast through National Park After Dark when they did a collaboration episode. They cover cases of people who went missing in America’s wilderness and speculate on how or why they might have disappeared, with some conspiracy theories mixed in. They have a great rapport as hosts, though I don’t know how they aren’t afraid to go out in the backcountry after studying all these cases (as a hint, even listening to a few episodes I’m a bit spooked).

• Peak Refuel: If you follow my Instagram, you know I do reviews of backcountry meals off the trail, all with the goal of understanding if any of the meals taste good when you aren’t exhausted from a day of hiking. I’ve tried a wide array of brands, and no brand has consistently received high ratings like Peak Refuel. I have yet to try anything of theirs that I haven’t loved — guess I’ll keep trying everything until I run out of recipes! If you are going camping and want a simple meal or will be in the backcountry, I highly recommend Peak Refuel!

Thanks for making it this far — you a real one — see you all for our next episode release in two weeks!!

Maddie

p.s. Get your friends to sign up for the newsletter at whorunsthispark.com/newsletter.

p.p.s Support WRTP on our Patreon at patreon.com/WhoRunsThisPark