Hawaii 2019: Helicopter Tour of Kohala Coast (Full)

So here we are going up in a helicopter with our pilot, Ted. Hi, my name is Brett Lonson. I'm a rock major with a minor in place, and my favorite movie is Enterprise. Okay, you guys excited, ready to go? Let's go check out the north side of the Oklahoma. All right, we're here at A Bay. South of us is Keola Bay, if you're familiar. I'll give you a chance to check out some of the pristine water here around the big island on the leeward side of the island. Where's your family visiting from? So I'm from New York, and my daughter here is from New York. She's visiting with her husband. Your daughter? You mean your sister, right? Yeah, this is my sister. And my brother in the back. Yeah, I'm the brother. I'm not your son. So they're from California, so they just met us here last night. And we only have four days, so we have an action-packed four days. Okay, good. Went with our sea turtle this morning, said hello to him, and didn't touch him. That was great. But we could have, he was so close. And tonight we're going to go find the manta rays. Cool. Yeah. Yeah, that's always a lot of fun to do as well. Are you going to dive or just snorkel? We're just snorkeling. Okay. It's still good. You get a chance to see the plankton and all of that stuff. It's pretty cool. I can imagine it's like magical. I can't imagine being around them like that. Magnum PI was my favorite show back in the 80s. Yeah, it had nothing to do with the mustache, I imagine. It was strictly because of the helicopter, yeah. I know. But I always wanted to go up in a helicopter. Okay, well, good. All the difference is, this is a different helicopter. They fly an MD-500, and that's over on the island of Oahu, where they were filming the Magnum PI. But other than that, yeah, you're going to get the chance to, obviously, you're getting a chance to check it out. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take you up and over here to the north side of the island. We're going to go to the west side of the island. We've got some really cool stuff to show you. Stuff I'll bet you didn't even know existed over here, and most people don't. But thanks for visiting, and aloha and welcome. Time will stop. Children, what's that sound? Everybody, look what's going down. Okay, got to throw out a safety thing. We're going to climb up. And then we're going to ascend. You might have to equalize pressure in your ears. If you do, swallow, yawn, wiggle your jaw, chew gum, drink water if it's available. If you look up here at the summit, today is kind of an unusual day. High pressure is starting to build. We don't have the normal buildup like we would. But the summits of these volcanoes are typically covered with clouds. It's called the rain shadow effect. Nice and green up there makes for good pasture land. The grass can grow real well. They raise grass-fed beef up here. This is Kahua Ranch I'll be flying you over. A little bit further to the east is the Parker Ranch. At one time, they were considered the largest privately owned ranch in the U.S. As you can see, it changes pretty dramatically here. We're now crossing over into the west side, although you really wouldn't know it. If you thought it was like this every afternoon like this, you'd be sadly mistaken. It's not. They get 200 inches of rain over here. It is green and lush for a reason. But what I'm about to explain to you has actually been going on out here 70 million years. This is very hard for us as humans to wrap our heads around. We're the youngest island close to a million years old. The south side of this island, we have three active volcanoes. The north side, this is extinct. It's impossible to have an eruption. Mauna Kea is dormant, also impossible to have an eruption. Neither one of them are attached to any of the hot zones. On the south side, we gain island. On this side, we lose island. How we lose island is because of all this east to west trade winds. Moist air is surrounded by water and gets brought onto the island just like you can see ahead of us. Four-step slope additional cooling takes place. Clouds form, rain falls, and lots of it. You see all the little lines? Everybody always wonders what those are. That's water leaving the island. As it does, it's taking a little of the island with it each and every time. In other words, the island is eroding. The waves are shaping the shoreline. Now, here is the interesting part. The fact that the island is falling apart and we as humans describe this as paradise. Why? Because we like seeing scenic waterfalls, deep valleys, sea cliffs, vertical sea cliffs in particular. Remember, this is the culmination of hundreds of thousands of years that you get to see this like this. The only other thing I have to add is if you're afraid of heights, you might want to close your eyes. See how it's set back? That's what's missing from the island a quarter million to three hundred thousand years ago. I'm going to bring you up here eye level. I want you to take a look in here to the rainforest. I want you to keep in mind one thing. This is not intentionally planted. This is Mother Nature's work. You look up in here and you look at how dense. Have you ever heard of canopy rainforest? Take a look up in here. You'll get this perspective, which you don't get very often. Take a look up here. Just like I said, keep in mind this was not intentionally planted. You can come around. You can reach the east overlook here in Waipio. Drive back all the way where you came from. Go all the way back around. You can drive to the end of Highway 270, which is Pololu on the west side. There are no roads in between. This is the only way you can see this. This is Waipio, the only one where people live. Follow the river back. You'll see a big pair of waterfalls. Fifteen hundred feet. Not the tallest you're going to see today. Can you see the bottom? I'm talking about through the rainforest, right? That's what they mean when they say triple canopy. There's a trail in there, believe it or not. Of course, it's an 18-mile round-trip hike. Who's ready to do an 18-mile round-trip hike? Really? You guys are lying. You better pack lightly. It's not a day trip. But anyway, there is a trail in there. Tell me you can find it, right? That's what I mean by that. You can be underneath there on the trail, underneath that triple canopy, a bright sunny day, and it'd be dark almost. That's how thick that canopy can be, and very humid too. Alright, I'm going to take you into this valley known as Waimanu. There's a series of waterfalls in here you'll never forget. The tallest ones are a half a mile, 13th largest in the world. Otherwise, no big deal. Alright, so I'm going to be able to throw a little freebie here away this afternoon. You can see where the clouds are at. If they get that much lower, I can't take in here. That's how simple that is. Less than 20% of the people we fly on average get to see these back valleys. A couple bonus waterfalls back up in here. That is, of course, unless you guys would like me to go back to the beach, because this is a freebie. I'm just glad you enjoyed it. That's what it's for. It's meant to invoke those kind of emotions. And you can see just how quickly this changes, how well hidden it is. Once again, now as we come by Parker Ranch, you can see that Abigail is just down in California. You've got a pretty darn nice view up here. You were just saying, like, the emotions. Being somewhere and seeing pictures are so different. Yep, until you see that in person, that's really the only way you're going to see it anyway. You can do the 18-mile hike, like I said, but all you see is the first waterfall from the beach. The trail doesn't take you into the back. There's people who were born on this island. You don't even know that exists. Although the island is very young, we do, in fact, have some beautiful white sandy beaches. Two of our best beaches is Mauna Kea and Hapuna State Beach. The south side of the island is where the active volcanoes are. We can't even see Kilauea. That's how far away Kilauea is. You can't even see it. By the way, who knew that the volcano was erupting for 35 and a half years? On April 30th, a year ago, after erupting since January 3rd, 1983, 35 and a half continuous years, it stopped because we had 8,000 earthquakes in one day over there. And Pu'u O'o imploded. When it imploded, it sent the lava that was held in Pu'u O'o, which is a cinder cone vent, 1,500 feet below the summit of Kilauea, and it sent the lava 10 to 12 miles downhill, underneath the earth, not on the surface, underneath the neighborhood that you saw on the news three and a half days later. It had nothing to do with the volcano erupting. The volcano stopped erupting because of the earthquakes. That was a trigger event. The lava drained from the upper part, mid part, upper part of the volcano. The pressure, because it went to the lowest point of the island, the pressure then sent it to the surface. Once the lava finally came to the surface from the upper part of the volcano, it basically drained the volcano for four months. It was erupting 200 feet in the air 24-7. As the lava falls back down to the ground, it creates that cylindrical vent. Those are cinder cone vents, or known as Pu'u O'o's. Where the Pu'u O'o vent is, it's now a 1,300 foot hole in the ground. We can fly over it right now and look down 1,300 feet into the heart of Kilauea. Those waterfalls, the ones I showed you, the tallest were 2,600 feet, twice that size. They're a half a mile. When I brought you right up to the wall, those are 2,600 feet right there in the back. And in the very back valleys, they're almost 3,000 feet, if you go all the way down to the bottom. The last eruption in this particular part of the island is right there, 1859. See the dark blue? That came from Mauna Loa, by the way, not from Hualalai. And that's the second longest river of lava in the entire world. It's 25 miles long. All right, guys, well, I've got to get this aircraft back in here, but did you enjoy your ride around the island today? Very much. It's amazing. I think it's the single most amazing event of my life.