Diamond Head
— — a brow above the city's edge.
Not only on a wall.
“A tuff cone at the east end of Waikīkī, looking like someone scooped out one side of a hill and left the rest standing. Hawaiians call it Lēʻahi, the brow of the tuna. The trail to the rim is short, switchbacks then a steep tunnel, then a concrete bunker overlooking the channel. The view at the top is half ocean, half hotels, all light.
Diamond Head, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Diamond Head, known in Hawaiian as Lēʻahi, is a tuff cone on the south-east shore of Oʻahu, just east of Waikīkī in Honolulu. It formed during a single explosive eruption of the Honolulu Volcanics roughly 300,000 years ago, when superheated steam shaped the broad saucer-rim still visible from offshore. The summit reaches 762 feet (232 metres). The crater and surrounding 475 acres are managed as a Hawaiʻi State Monument, with a 0.8-mile trail from the floor to the rim. British sailors named it Diamond Head in the 1820s, mistaking calcite crystals on the slope for gemstones.
The rim runs roughly east-west, so morning light flares off the trade-wind chop in the channel and afternoon light lays a long shadow inside the crater. Most hikers go up at sunrise; gates open at 6 a.m. and the parking lot fills quickly. Late afternoon, around 4 p.m., is quieter and the angle softens the brown lava and the white hotel ranks along Waikīkī into something closer to ochre and bone. The trail itself climbs 560 feet through switchbacks, a lit tunnel, and a concrete observation bunker built in 1911.
The trail requires a reservation for out-of-state visitors, booked through the Hawaiʻi State Parks site up to thirty days in advance; Hawaiʻi residents enter without one. Parking inside the crater costs ten dollars per vehicle, walk-in entry five dollars per person. The gate opens at 6 a.m. and last entry is 4 p.m. Plan an hour and a half round trip with photos. The trail is paved early, then becomes uneven rock, narrow stairs, and the dark Battery Birkhimer tunnel. Closed-toe shoes and water are essential.