A snow-covered Mauna Kea cinder cone sits near the observatories while Mauna Loa is visible in the distance. Click the photo for a larger view. - Photos: Blaine Fergerstrom

Other worlds atop
'the mountain'
A visit to Mauna Kea and the Gemini telescope

By Blaine Fergerstrom / Ka Wai Ola

Koa Rice leads the party of travelers to an ahu at the juncture where Saddle Road intersects with the road leading to the Mauna Kea summit. Ho'okupu carefully placed, she chants “E Hō Mai” and offers pule asking permission to visit the sacred summit. The only answer is steady makani and the sound of nearby heavy equipment.

Saddle Road is undergoing a long-planned upgrade, which will straighten and widen the once-treacherous, narrow, winding road. Finished sections are wide enough to accommodate four lanes, turning lanes, emergency shoulders and freeway signs advising of 55 mph speed limits. For those familiar with the old Saddle Road, the new look is disorienting. What used to be a very quiet, isolated place now has high-speed traffic dodging construction equipment and orange cones in the unfinished sections.

Koa Rice leaves ho'okupu and chants pule seeking permission to visit and safe passage. - Photos: Blaine Fergerstrom

Rice finishes the ceremony by using a ti leaf to sprinkle ocean water dipped from a koa bowl over the visitors, then pours the remainder gently over the ahu. Protocol satisfied, the party continues toward the summit.

Kahalelaukoa “Koa” Ka'ahanui Rice, a Gemini Observatory outreach assistant, has been working atop Mauna Kea off and on for the past 10 years. Rice is well-known among all the telescope's staff. They greet her with hugs and jokes at every turn. She left two years ago to pursue love and life in Los Angeles, but returned after 18 months, missing her Hilo home and her first love, “the mountain.” She goes to the summit “almost every day.”

Resembling a Swiss chalet, the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy at the 9,000-foot elevation is home to the people who work at the summit. Featuring offices, a dining facility and cabins, scientists and technicians must stop here and spend approximately an hour to acclimate to the high altitude before ascending to the top. They also sleep in one of the cabins at the center when working for extended times at the top.

Gemini North during the day. At night, huge doors open along the sides to allow the freezing air to stabilize the temperature of the mirror. Click the photo for a larger view. - Photos: Blaine Fergerstrom

Jon Archambeau, a part-time tour guide and Gemini Virtual Tour technician, points out that falling asleep at 14,000 feet would be disastrous. “At this altitude, there is very little oxygen to begin with, and your body takes in even less when you're asleep.” If you fell asleep at the summit, lack of oxygen could make you go into a coma. “You could die in your sleep,” he says.

After a stop at the center for lunch and acclimation, Archambeau gives a rundown on altitude sickness and safety. Telescope visitors must sign a release acknowledging the risks before continuing.

A check of weather at the summit reveals 55 mph winds and 32°F temperatures with a high-wind warning in effect. Conditions are considered fierce, even for seasoned veterans.

Inside the Gemini North dome, the telescope's huge 8.1 meter mirror is housed in the thick, steel frame (painted blue) A small reflecting and focusing mirror is housed in the small black tube at the top of the white frame. The instrument package which analyzes the light gathered by the telescope hangs below. Click the photo for a larger view. - Photos: Blaine Fergerstrom

The way up is a steep, winding gravel road up through the clouds. In many places, there is no guardrail. Visibility is sometimes only 25 feet and Archambeau slows the four-wheel drive vehicle to a crawl. In March 2007, two people died and another was injured when the brakes failed and their car plunged over the side.

Eventually, the clouds are surpassed and a lunar tableau is revealed. The landscape is so other-worldly, NASA once used the area as a surrogate moon for astronauts training to go to the real one. Numerous cinder cones dot cooled lava flows from ancient eruptions. Snow several feet deep covers the highest points and collects in pockets everywhere, even in April.

The actual summit features only a more recently built ahu and a U.S. Geological Survey marker. Click the photo for a larger view. - Photos: Blaine Fergerstrom

The guide points out that ancient Hawaiians valued the specialized basalt created when intensely heated molten rock was exposed to the extreme cold of prehistoric glaciers, which covered the area. Steel is treated similarly to harden it for use in tools like knives and chisels. The rock created in this fashion became extremely dense and hard, perfect for making stone tools.

Hawaiian artisans braved the extreme conditions wearing only kapa and ki to spend extended periods working in ko'i quarries near the summit. Many Mauna Kea adze quarry sites have been identified and together are preserved as a national historic landmark.

At the 14,000-foot summit, there are no telescopes; only a U.S. Geological Survey marker, a stone ahu and human footprints in the cinders mar the spot. The telescopes sit on a ridgeline below the summit in a loop.

Inside the Onizuka center at the 9,000-foot level, Koa Rice gets a big hug from one of the telescope workers. Click the photo for a larger view. - Photos: Blaine Fergerstrom

The Gemini Telescope is operated by a consortium of seven countries: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. Gemini actually refers to two telescopes: Gemini North sits on Mauna Kea, surveying the northern hemisphere, while its twin, Gemini South, sits atop a remote mountain in Chile, scanning southern skies. The twin telescopes feature 8-meter (26.6-foot) mirrors and are linked by network. Scientists at both locations collaborate regularly.

Gemini has discovered the heaviest stellar black hole and the most distant object in the solar system. The images and data gathered by Gemini have been deemed as good as the Hubble Space Telescope.

Once inside the Gemini dome, outside wind noise is replaced by the hum of machinery. Only a few people are actually working here and the facility seems deserted.

Caution tape marks areas where the continuous work of maintaining and upgrading the telescope is under way. Hoses and electrical cords cris-cross the floor. Plastic sheeting covers sensitive equipment. Heavy steel beams anchored to thick concrete pads support the massive structure and its heart, the telescope mirror. Hard hats are required. Through this jumble Archambeau guides
his visitors, watching every step to ensure safety.

Jon Archambeau, telescope guide, also works on the University of Hawai'i telescope next door to the Gemini. Here, Archambeau applies frozen nitrogen to the mirror to keep its temperature stable for optimum viewing. Click the photo for a larger view. - Photos: Blaine Fergerstrom

Workers at the summit move slowly to conserve energy and oxygen. One is quickly overcome by only the slightest exertion. Workers carry snacks and learn “pressure breathing” techniques to help combat altitude sickness, which can cause dizziness, impaired judgment, headache, and clumsiness. The feeling is compared to having “a couple of martinis.” In this industrial setting, it can be dangerous.

Archambeau spot-checks oxygen level and heart rate with a clip-on fingertip monitor. Measurements of 89% for oxygen (compared to 100% at sea-level) and a 92 beats-per-minute heart rate are deemed “pretty good” for a summit malihini. A sea-level heart rate would be between 60-80 bpm.

As the group starts back down, a startling sight greets them: A tourist has driven his rent-a-car to the summit and is standing in 55 mph wind, 32° temperatures, in aloha shirt, shorts and slippers, trying to take pictures. He is, apparently unprepared for a summit visit. There are no barriers on the road up and anyone may drive to the summit, unescorted, but unprepared visitors can endanger themselves and others. They can also damage sensitive sites.

Near the summit of Mauna Kea sit the Subaru, left, twin W.M. Keck and NASA Infrafed telescopes. Click the photo for a larger view. - Photos: Blaine Fergerstrom

Archambeau stops at the Mauna Kea Visitor Center, just below Onizuka. The visitor center is operated by the National Park Service to advise visitors as to conditions and preparations for visiting the summit. On this late afternoon, three small buses full of Japanese tourists are parked at the center, organized tour groups that visit the summit several times a day, says Rice. “They come up to watch the sunset,” she says.

The tour ends back in Hilo, one street above the 'Imiloa Astronomy Center where a small tech park houses remote viewing centers and offices for nearly all the observatories atop Mauna Kea. Gemini scientists do most of their research work from this low-elevation location, leaving chiefly a maintenance presence inside the structures at the 14,000-foot summit, helping to minimize the impact of their operations on “the mountain.”

See the full version of this story at http://www.zztype.com/blog/?p=145