We actually don't know which part of the desert trail we followed (we think we went down the Mauna Iki Trail). We hiked for three hours or so (1.5hrs or so each way). The rains stopped and the sky cleared a half hour down the trail (and we forgot the sunblock in the car. D'oh!) But the wind was cool. At one point, we veered from the trail a little bit to climb over a huge mound on the pahoehoe. Robt's adventurous spirit made me extremely cautious and alert to the point of being a bit paranoid. I knew after a short trek over the pahoehoe that we were walking on hollow ground. There were many areas that had sunken or cracked, showing that the smooth lumps of lava were really anywhere from a couple of feet thick to just a few inches. We turned back after we found what Robt thinks was Cone Crater (or maybe even Pu'ukaone). It was probably a pit crater, 100 feet deep and maybe 300 feet in diameter.

  Robt was clambering around the rim of the crater and I was truly afraid for his life. I made my way around the other side, staying clear of the edge, so he could take a picture of the crater with me as a size reference. He took the shots and started moving again. From my point of view, he was walking across a slab that was ready to slough off. Last thing I wanted was for him to be startled, so I didn't scream... Instead, I spoke loudly and forcefully "Hey! Where do you think you're going?" in such a manner that made him stop immediately to look at me, then noticed that the piece he was standing on sounded hollow. (Robt tells me later that I need to cultivate that voice for our future kids. It was real effective, he said.)