Qualla: Chain of Craters Road

Chain of Craters Road: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lukas from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY 2.0. Somewhere beneath the lava fields at the southern end of Chain of Craters Road, there is a town. Kalapana once sat at the end of this 19-mile route through Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, connected to the summit of Kilauea by a winding road built in 1928 and extended in 1959. The town is gone now, buried. The road is buried too, at least the last 7.5 miles of it. As of 2018, lava had covered portions of Chain of Craters Road in 41 of the past 53 years. This is not a road that was built and finished. It is a road that is perpetually being unmade.

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Image: Lukas from Tokyo, Japan | CC BY 2.0

Chain of Craters Road: Descending into the Rift

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cyndy Sims Parr, CC BY-SA 2.0. The road begins near the summit of Kilauea, at the junction with Crater Rim Drive, in dense tropical rainforest fed by frequent rains at the top of the eastern rift zone. Within three miles, the landscape shifts. The road passes the vent of Kilauea, then descends through the chai...

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Image: Cyndy Sims Parr | CC BY-SA 2.0

Chain of Craters Road: A Road That Lava Keeps Claiming

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. The original 1928 road connected Crater Rim Drive to Makaopuhi Crater. Its 1959 extension to Kalapana lasted just ten years before lava flows from Kilauea closed it in 1969. The road reopened in 1979. It was cut again in 1986 by flows from the Pu'u 'O'o eruption, which would cont...

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Image: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Chain of Craters Road: The Craters and What They Teach

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit VitaleBaby (talk · contribs), Public domain. Each crater along the road tells a different geologic story. Lua Manu formed through subsidence, not eruption -- the ground simply dropped. Pauahi Crater, 300 feet wide and 500 feet deep, last erupted in 1979 and sits beside fault scarps that have been active for more than a thou...

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Image: VitaleBaby (talk · contribs) | Public domain

Chain of Craters Road: Where the Pavement Ends

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Yoshi Canopus, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today, Chain of Craters Road terminates at Holei Sea Arch, a dramatic natural arch carved by Pacific waves into the volcanic coast. Beyond this point, the road simply disappears under lava. There are no shops, no gas stations, no services along the route except a refreshment kios...

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Image: Yoshi Canopus | CC BY-SA 4.0