Big Island · Puna
Lava Tree State Monument
Lava Tree State Monument is a 2-acre Hawaiʻi state park 2.7 miles southeast of Pāhoa, preserving lava-tree molds from a 1790 East Rift Zone eruption. Pāhoehoe lava (~2,000°F / ~1,100°C) flowed through a wet ʻōhiʻa lehua forest at this site; water in the trees' bark vaporized into a steam pocket that insulated the trunks while the lava cooled around them. Lava drained downhill (~11 ft deep at this site) leaving the molds standing as upright pillars; the encased trunks later burned out or rotted, leaving hollow lava cylinders with bark-textured interior walls. Free 0.7-mile paved loop trail; ADA-accessible boardwalk sections; restrooms and picnic tables. The 1790 eruption is the same general event that killed a Hawaiian war party in the Kaʻū Desert south of the volcano (Footprints Trail in HVNP).
The lava trees are fragile. Stay on the boardwalk; do not climb on the formations or break off pieces. Some of the molds still have the original tree's bark texture imprinted on the inside; touching it accelerates the weathering that will eventually flake it off. The park is small and the loop is short; do not bring loud groups, and do not block the boardwalk for photographs. The regenerating ʻōhiʻa around the lava trees is the same species the lava encased in 1790; brush mud off your shoes to slow the spread of rapid ʻōhiʻa death.