The 2022 eruption of the Mauna Loa volcano cut off road access to the Mauna Loa Baseline Observatory. Construction on the temporary Mauna Loa Access road was completed on 26 March, 2026.

At this time, there is no site access for the general public to the Mauna Loa Observatory and NOAA has not yet established a public opening date. GML and scientific partners are working together to bring mission critical scientific projects back online. It is still unclear when utility infrastructure will be replaced and power re-established to the site.

We will provide another update as more information becomes available.

Media contact: Theo Stein at (303) 819-7409 or theo.stein@noaa.gov.

  1. Publications
  2. Mauna Loa Historical Publications

Mauna Loa Historical publications from GML.

Click on a document icon to download the report. These documents are in PDF format.

John Miller Memorabillia Life and Times at the Mauna Loa Observatory in the Late Seventies, John Miller (2007)
MLO 40th Anniversary Mauna Loa 40th Anniversary Book (1997)
Judy Pereira Memorabilia Judy Pereira Memorabilia Mauna Loa
Mauna Loa 20th Anniversary Mauna Loa 20th Anniversary Book (1978)
Howard Ellis Memorabilia Howard Ellis Memorabilia Mauna Loa
Ralph Stair Report Ralph Stair Report Mauna Loa

Mauna Loa's White Dog

White Dog White dog

According to Hawaiian Legend, Pele, the fiery goddess of the volcanoes in Hawaii, would send her white dog as a messenger to alert the people when an eruption was imminent. A white dog was first noticed by the observatory staff during the latter part of 1959 about 1/2 km below the observatory. At that time, the staff lived at the site for up to a week on rotating shifts. Because of this housekeeping, a rubbish dump soon developed to the west of the observatory. The contention of the staff was that a stray dog had discovered the dump and foraged there for food. Attempts to befriend or capture this mysterious dog, no matter how persistent, failed. The dog for some reason would have nothing to do with the observatory staff. In December 1959, Kilauea Iki erupted and the dog disappeared. The dog reappeared at the observatory several months later and again was spotted periodically for a month or so and then disappeared again. This pattern of appearances and disappearances continued until 1966. Since then, no one has seen this mysterious white dog.