THE LEAPING PLACE: CAN'T HEAD ANY FARTHER SOUTH? YOU'VE FOUND KA LAE

by N. J. Johnston

There is no flat land in Hawaii. Even in the southern grasslands of Ka'u on the Big Island, where Angus cattle stand up to their bellies in rich pasture, the landscape tilts more or less steadily from volcano top to the sea. The twin volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, each rise well over 13,600 feet on an island 80 miles wide. It is not surprising then, that the road to Ka Lae, the southernmost point in the United States, is one long descent.

Turning down South Point Road feels like the beginning of a long journey. Twelve miles of single-lane asphalt wind down past macadamia nut farms and fenced pastures with gates and long grassy driveways. The landscape is dotted with monkeypod trees and I catch glimpses of water catchment tanks, small outbuildings, and weathered ranch houses.

I've been told there are only three places in Hawaii: Where the tourists go, where transplants from the mainland go, and where the island-born Hawaiians go that not even my haole friends who have lived here for a generation know about. Most people who visit the Big Island go to the Kona, or leeward side, where destination resorts are strung like pearls along the best beaches. Multinational hotels import luxury architecture and soil to grow lawns, bushes of hibiscus and bougainvillea, and groves of royal palms. With lavish watering systems, they create oases of tropical lushness in a naturally lunar landscape. The real Hawaii is elsewhere.

As a pale-faced friend of locals, I've been to secret places that require local knowledge and hours of jeep time, bone-jarring, bring-your-own-water, backcountry adventuring. The reward is windsurfing across open bays with deserted beaches, and hiking beside the flowering heads of wild ginger that stand as tall as the spears carried by the old Hawaiians. I can only imagine where the island-born go.

Approaching South Point, the road drops sharply and crumbles at the edges. There is no parking lot or barrier, nothing to stop a plunge off into the deep blue Pacific. I turn in a lazy circle, and stop on hard-packed red dirt. Ka Lae is no secret, but not many tourists come to this ancient and exposed end of the earth.

But what a view. Waves with a fetch of thousands of miles come to land here, in a crashing fury some days, or gently, as today. The silver surface of the ocean sparkles and undulates, rolling wave after wave in over the huge stair steps of black lava at my feet, each one churning to white foam and the palest of blues before falling back on itself. Blinking in the glare, I climb down to the waterline and search for manmade holes   "...article continues..."