But in general, the University’s astronomers – and especially the road that enabled the observatory’s construction and ongoing service – were welcomed. Before that, the summit had been attainable only on foot. Winter snow typically extends from the summit down to about 11,000 feet, occasionally as low as 9,000 feet. But now, anyone with a four-wheel-drive vehicle could attain the summit. This enabled the elderly and disabled to experience what it was like up there, and allowed far more people than ever before to go hiking or – especially – skiing, since they no longer had to hike back up between runs. (And where else in the world but here can you – within just a couple of hours – both ski in the snow and surf in the ocean?)

Small cabins at the 9,000-foot level were expanded into a year-round dormitory facility for the astronomers and the “night assistants” who ran the machinery for them, and who typically worked four nights in a row, then had four whole days off. Thus, no one had to make a daily commute from sea-level that might provoke altitude sickness: the headache, disorientation and shortness of breath that comes from going up too high too fast.

Before the 1970s had ended, however, three more observatories had been erected on Mauna Kea. Sentiment in the native Hawaiian community turned inexorably against further construction. And yet, despite their complaints to the University (which administers the summit), their protests at all levels of government, and their vociferous testimony at public hearings, two more observatories were built in the 1980s, and another five(!) were established in the ’90s.

Summit. Photo Credit: Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station

Although the actual geological summit of Mauna Kea is and has always been reserved for Hawaiian cultural and religious activities – a ceremonial stone cairn marks the spot – almost all of the adjacent cinder cones now sport observatory buildings. And now, another observatory, which would house the world’s largest mirror, has been approved. This, over the objections not only of native Hawaiians, who see this as a desecration of their most sacred place; but also of environmental activists, who are rightly concerned that the summit’s fragile ecosystem is steadily being demolished, to the detriment of the plants and insects that live nowhere else.

At maturity the Silversword, classified as an endangered species since 1986, produces a 6 foot tall flowering stalk with hundreds of flowers. Since silverswords sometimes grow for up to 40 years before flowering, it is relatively rare to see a silversword in bloom. Since the 1970s the State of Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources has eradicated many of the feral ungulates (sheeps & goats) on the mountain first introduced by late 18th century ship captains, and begun reintroducing the Mauna Kea Silversword. Image Credit: Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station

Such antagonism would probably have boiled over into outright hostility, by now, had it not been for Imiloa.
And you can read more about that remarkable place here.

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