Papakōlea Beach

Papakōlea sits near South Point on Hawaiʻi Island, the southernmost land in the United States. It is a small beach inside a partly collapsed cinder cone, Puʻu Mahana, formed some tens of thousands of years ago, and it is green.

The colour is olivine. The cone's lava was rich in the mineral, which is denser and more durable than the surrounding basalt; as the cone erodes, the lighter material washes away and olivine crystals concentrate on the beach. There are perhaps four green sand beaches in the world and this is the most accessible of them, which is a relative statement.

Getting there is a walk. The trail from the car park at Kaulana Bay is around four kilometres each way across open, unshaded, windswept coastal grassland with no water and no facilities. Unofficial four-wheel-drive shuttles operate on the track and are neither licensed nor endorsed; the vehicles have caused significant erosion, and the land is Hawaiian Home Lands, which makes the situation complicated in ways worth respecting.

The beach itself is small, at the bottom of the cone's inner wall, reached by a scramble down. The bay is exposed, the surf can be strong and the current is serious. People do swim; conditions decide whether that is sensible on any given day. South Point itself, a few kilometres west, is the southernmost land in the United States and has a cliff that people jump from into deep water; it is also where the first Polynesian settlers are thought to have landed.

Olivine, green, one of four such beaches on earth, at the end of a five-kilometre walk across exposed pasture with no water and no shade. The unlicensed trucks that offer a lift are cutting the trail apart and the county asks visitors not to use them. Walk it or do not go.