We were there in April. We had to stop at the visitors center @ 9200 feet because they road to the top was covered with ice.
My friends made it to the top two days later. It was very windy.
It was my first trip to the Big Island. It really has much more dramatic climate changes than Oahu and Maui. It is incredible how much it rains on that northeast shore as opposed to the west Kona coast.
Yeah there are three climates there. the tropical, the snowy alpine and then the middle dry areas whose climate is like that of coastal california.
btw did you drink any of the kona coffee while you were there. I was totally knocked down by how smooth kona coffee is. there is just no bitter after taste to it at all. apparently that has something to do with the volcanic soil.
For many years I had a picture on my desk of the stars over Haleakala on Maui in the the morning. I got that at a visitor center about half way up that mountain there. I stopped at the visitor center on mauna kea too but I don’t recall seeing pictures for tourists as dramatic.
After that trip I went to the planetarium in Honolulu. They showed space from the point of view of Hawaii and how the hawaiians navigated by the stars.
Then I went to the planetarium in washington dc and got a view of space from the point of view of the east coast of the USA. The two views gave me a third sense of the big curvature of the earth.
To this daym—that was a memorable summer vacation.