Has anyone ever been gutsey enough to do just a day trip to the BI?

I am travelling to Oahu in March for a week with my wife. I have always wanted to see the lava flows of Kilauea. I have the sporting spirit in me to fly into Hilo early, rent a car, drive to the Volcanoes National Park, hike/explore in search of the lava flows for several hours (5-6 hours is a timeframe I am guestimating), stay past sunset for better viewing, drive back to Hilo, drop off the rental, and fly back to Oahu.

It will probably be a long and tiring day, but I am up for the challenge. I want to take the chance of seeing the lava flows and exploring the park's beauty (if time permits). Question is, how feasible is this? Is it an impossible undertaking what I am proposing?

Not impossible, but there's no way you could have gotten me into an airplane after the hike out of the lava fields in December. It was miserable enough getting into a car and driving back to Kona!

You won't have enough time to really enjoy all of VNP, but if your goal is to see the lava flow, that's about all you'll get, unless the flow changes conserderably... which is always possible. It was about a two hour hike out... took two and a half to get back out. (pitch black, no markers or landmarks visable... slow going)

I would do it, I wouldn't recommend it, but the volcanoe is worth doing what you can to get there.

oops... typo. Should have read, "I would NOT do it..."

I checked both Aloha and Hawaiian Air and the last interisland flights between Hilo and Honolulu are around 7:45pm. It's going to take you, what, maybe 1.5 hours to get from the end of Chain of Craters Road back into Hilo, so sunset viewing sounds like it will be out of the question. You need to be aware of the time frames for this kind of thing. You'll need time to drive back, drop off the car, check in at the airport, go through security, etcetera. The earliest flight from HNL to Hilo is around 5:30 am, you could probably be on the road after 6:30. That would give you a very full day in the park lava-hunting and still have time to get back.

Check out the park's website here: http://www.nps.gov/havo/visitor/lava.htm
As of today, it says lava is flowing in a remote area of the park 3 miles beyond Chain of Craters Road. But where the flows are can change often. What about a helicopter tour?

love
roxy

Hmmm...Yeah I just confirmed that the last flight out to HNL from Hilo is 7:45pm. That does put a monkey wrench in the plans.

I too cannot envision getting on a plane after hiking out to see the lava flows. During our trip two summers ago, we hiked out in the evening after a day of driving around the park. We parked about a mile away from the head of the trail so we had to walk all the way there to begin with (parking close to the head of the trail is scarce if you arrive just after sundown). The trail over the lava was strenous physically because of trying to avoid falling, skipping over the gaps in the darkness and trying to find the trail markers along the way. We were lucky to be able to walk right up to the lava after the 2-hour hike and were awed by it, so much that we went back the next day in daylight! It was an amazing sight. But after the hike back to the car I was asleep from exhaustion in about five minutes. We were staying about 2 miles from the park entrance and that was a blessing since the drive from the end of Crater's Road to the park exit took at least 45 minutes.