Download a pdf of the 💥💥KĪLAUEA IKI TRAIL GUIDE 💥💥 on your phone before your hike. (search google for a copy). There are also $2 physical copies in the visitor center. It turned a 2/10 boring “this is just big hole” 🤨🕳️ experience to an extraordinarily enriching and mind blowing hike. The guide tells you things like… Look for drill holes on your left: “4 months after the eruption, scientists in the 60s drilled holes in the crater… and after only drilling 9’, had to evacuate the site because lava came back up” 🌋 Notes: Arrived at the kīlauea iki overlook parking at 8:30am. It was EMPTY. Came back at 12:30pm, it was FULL, with lots of meandering cars.

Awesome hike through a lush rainforest and beautiful crater bed. I definitely recommend starting as early as possible. My husband and I started at 7am and were able to have the trail almost entirely to ourselves and beat the high temperatures in the crater bed from the sun reflecting off of the igneous rock. Hiking this trail counter-clockwise is best.

It’s a great trail very accessible and easy to get to. Very crowded though that’s the only drawback. Lots of tourists and unfortunately a few who don’t respect the trail (cutting switchbacks, building ahu (cairns) that don’t belong. But all in all a must, I would suggest going early and walking the trail in a clockwise pattern in the morning and counterclockwise in the afternoon so the sun will not be in your eyes when you are in the crater. I hike it almost everyday, in the fog beautiful, in the rain beautiful, in the sun beautiful.

My wife and I did this hike kind of on a whim. We did the crater rim in conjunction with the Kīlauea Iki for a roughly 3.8 round trip loop hike. Definitely go Counter-Clockwise, and once on the lava floor follow the rock piles! Great hike!

This was an amazing hike to the top of a dormant volcano. We did a short version. (Go left on the trail). We stopped at the lava tubes first then went to the bottom of the volcano and back up the way we came. It’s steep climb down and up but not overlay hard. This was shorter than the 3+ mile “loop” but I’m sure that is a good hike as well.

Nice loop trail that is manageable for a wide range of physical conditions. We followed conventional wisdom and went counterclockwise, which took us through the forest along the rim and then we descended down more stairs. The walk along the lava lake is fun and filled with diverse geological features. We had a nice breeze to stay cool, but bring water. The ascent took us to the lava tubes and then we took a last .5mi trail to where we parked. Parking does get tight, google also overshot the entrance to the lookout, enter the parking lot .1mi before google says otherwise you’ll have to loop around a few miles later.

What a wonderful trail. Lush green with lava floor. The trail is little steep if u plan to come around after going to lava floor. We competed this hike of around 1.2 miles in an hour or so. Also the parking was difficult was find since this is just near thursten lava tube. There is another parking 0.5 miles from here which is at Lookout.

This National Park can be as fun or as boring as you would like it to be. Loved this trail and there are a ton more to enjoy and are unique.