Photo of the Week - Observatories on the Big Island Hawaii

One of our absolute favorite trips was our tour up to the top of Mauna Kea on the Big Island in Hawaii. We were staying for a few days at the Mauna Kea Resort area and knew that we wanted to do the trip up to see the Observatories. We did a tour with Hawaii Forest and Trail Tours, primarily because they were voted in the top five on Things to do on Kona on TripAdvisor.

It was hard to believe the weather changes. We started in the afternoon, swimming in the pool at 90 F, and by the end of the day we had climbed up to below 30 F. Thankfully they included parkas and gloves!

It was a spectacular tour and we will do it again! This photo is of the observatories at sunset. We stayed at the top (about 14000 feet) until the sunset then went down to a lower level (to the information center) and pulled out the telescope to see the stars.

The Observatories at the Top of Mauna Kea at Sunset