Bear lands in sight of final destination

From BearWiki

Claim: Bear landed right near his final destination.

Lava flow map found in the USGS websitehttp://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/ which has been marked to show the location of the shatter ring where Bear Grylls landed in relation to Pu'u O'o and his final destination at the end of Highway 130.

Closeup photo of the shatter ring shows the shattered sections of surface crust which were forced up by the clogged tube before 1992. A well made platform of rocks about four feet square by three feet high is shown on the far end. This is also clearly visible on the aerial footage of Bear Grylls as he lands inside the shatter ring. The rock platform was probably constructed by the residents of nearby Royal Gardens subdivision before their access road was destroyed in the year 2000.

View of the end of Highway 130 from the ridge next to the shatter ring. The white structure in the center of the photo is a mobile home at the end of the gravel end of Highway 130.

Bear stated that he was going to land somewhere in the volcano's upper slopes, but instead landed five miles downslope of Pu'u O'o at about the 1500 foot elevation of Pulama Pali inside the Kahauale'a Natural Area Reserve and within sight of his final destination only three miles away. He also stated that he had landed in a dormant crater, that there was a lake of molten rock only a few feet beneath him, and that noxious gases were seeping out of the ground. The crater was, in fact, a shatter ring formed when a blockage in a lava tube formed a bulge and shattered the overlying crust in a circular pattern. This area was active from 1986 to 1992, so there is no lava under the surface and not even a trace of steam is evident, as is usual over lava tubes as they cool over many years.

There is no footage in the episode of the area between the shatter ring and his final destination at the end of Highway 130, so Bear and his crew probably got back in the choppers and flew back to the airport. There are no active flows, avocado trees, lava tubes with water flowing from tree roots, tropical forest, fissures with special bridges, and delicious honeycombs in this area. It is just an easy downhill hike of about one hour for a young man carrying only a flint, a knife and a water bottle.

[edit] Analysis