Snow?

Saturday, Dec 24
Today, while eating breakfast, we watched a pod of dolphins chase some snorkellers in the bay in front of the hotel. Our plans for the day were to drive to the top of Mauna Kea. It's the site of several astronomic observatories at almost 14000 feet. It's the tallest mountain in the world, if you include the 8000 feet that lies below the ocean. There is a guided tour for 4WD vehicles every Saturday and Sunday, as long as the road isn't closed due to snow. We checked the forecast, and since the road was open, we headed up to the visitor's center at 9000 feet soon after breakfast. After acclimatizing at the visitor's center, we joined a convoy and drove up. The rumor is that driving up to the summit voids rental car insurance, but there was no specific prohibition with our company, so we just didn't tell them. At the top, the temp was about 0C. This sounded balmy to us, but we hadn't considered the effect of the 50km/h wind. Brr. I thought we came to Hawaii for the heat? There were dozens of local Hawaiians with pickup trucks that they were filling with snow. We assumed this was a Christmas thing, but the rangers said this happens every time it snows on the mountain.
Part of the tour included access to the Keck telescopes, where several people collapsed due to lack of oxygen. Then we were left to wait for sunset, about an hour after the end of our tour. While we waited, about 30 tour buses came with tourists to see the sunset. The tourists got out of their buses and gatherd in front of our car. A few minutes before sunset, clouds came over the mountain from behind us and blocked the sun. It made for an interesting glow. But the sun set so quickly that we almost missed it due to not being able to see the progress from the car.
As soon as it set, we hopped back in the car and beat the tour buses back on the road down. Between the summit and the visitor's center it started raining. By the time we made it to the visitor's center, it was pitch black and pouring rain. There was also another few hundred people waiting there for the night time star gazing program. The rain made star gazing impossible, and the crowds waiting for the rain to pass convinced me to skip it. So we stayed long enough to each use the bathroom, lose each other and get soaked before heading back to Kona.
We ended up following one of the pick-ups full of snow back to town. We were very tempted to follow him to see what he would do with the snow. But we had to hit a grocery store to get lunch for Christmas day.