Mount Tantalus (Puʻu ʻōhiʻa)Edward B. Scott, "The Saga of the Sandwich Islands". Nevada: Sierra-Tahoe Publishing Co., 1968. is an extinct cinder cone in the southern Koolau Range on the

Hawaiian Island The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Ku ...

Oahu Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O� ...

. It also has a summit crater, Tantalus Crater. The cinder cone formed after the demise of Koolau Volcano, during a time of rejuvenated-stage volcanism in southeastern Oahu that also formed

Punchbowl Crater Punchbowl Crater is an extinct volcanic tuff cone located in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is the location of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The crater was formed some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago during the secondary activity of the H ...

, Diamond Head and Koko Head as part of the

Honolulu Volcanics The Honolulu Volcanics are a group of volcanoes which form a volcanic field on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, more specifically in that island's southeastern sector and in the city of Honolulu from Pearl Harbor to the Mokapu Peninsula. It is p ...

. Tantalus overlooks the modern city of

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

, which is built on top of Tantalus cinders. Round Top Radio Facility, Oahu, Hawaii 05

History

The Tantalus Loop was a popular wagon trail from the late 1800s for views and picnic parties. It had "rugged canyons, wooded valleys, aromatic

eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as e ...

giants, stag-horn fern, pungent guava", monkeypod, shower cassias, and myrtle, with a two-room, corrugated-roofed "Half-Way House", managed by 1900s forester David Haugh, offering a welcome stop for trekkers. Many immigrant families of note settled there "in cool picturesque seclusion", including the Waterhouses, Giffords, Wilders, Dickeys, Davies, Isenbergs, Browns, and Alexanders. A cliff of pitch-black volcanic sand was an attraction on Tantalus until it was mined for

blacktop Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and tarmac, bitumen macadam, or rolled asphalt in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parkin ...

ping paths and yards. As part of the U.S. Army's

coastal artillery Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of ...

defense system, a fire-control station was built on Tantalus. In conjunction with the fire-control station at Diamond Head, the two positions were used to control coast artillery batteries: at Fort DeRussey and Fort Ruger. The southern slope of Tantalus was bombed in

Operation K was a Japanese naval operation in World War II, intended as reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor and disruption of repair and salvage operations following the surprise attack on 7 December 1941. It culminated on 4 March 1942, with an unsucces ...

, Japan's unsuccessful second attack on Oahu, which took place March 4, 1942. Today, Tantalus is a popular destination for hikers, road bicyclists, and skateboarders as well as one of the most frequented tourist spots on Oahu. Starting in 1974, The Tantalus Time Trial, a bicycle race from the bottom to the top of the loop, is the longest continuously running cycling race in Hawai‘i.

Etymology

Tantalus was named in the 19th century by students from Honolulu's Punahou School for

Tantalus Tantalus ( grc, Τάνταλος ) was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his punishment in Tartarus: he was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the wate ...

, the mythological Greek whose eternal punishment in Hades was to be frustrated and tempted by food and water receding out of his reach, unable to quench his thirst or hunger. "Perhaps similarly, as the students climbed, the peak seemed always to recede." This group of students also named other Hawaiian summits like Olympus, Round Top and

Sugarloaf A sugarloaf was the usual form in which refined sugar was produced and sold until the late 19th century, when granulated and cube sugars were introduced. A tall cone with a rounded top was the end product of a process in which dark molasses, a r ...

.Mary Kawena Pukui, Samuel H. Elbert, and Esther T. Mookini, "Place Names of Hawaii". Hawaii: The University Press of Hawaii, 1974, p. 213.

Popular culture

Tantalus Crater is a setting in the novel '' Micro'' by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston.

References

Volcanoes of Oahu Cinder cones of the United States Mountains of Hawaii Landforms of Oahu Extinct volcanoes Pleistocene volcanoes Pleistocene Oceania Cenozoic Hawaii Tourist attractions in Honolulu County, Hawaii {{Hawaii-geo-stub