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With a billion dollars worth star gazing telescopes and a host of red cinder cones (“puu’s”), it looks more like Mars.

Indeed Mauna Kea has more world-class claims than any other state highpoint — including Alaska’s McKinley:

• It is the highest in the Pacific (more than 1,000 feet higher than Mount Fuji).
• It is the world’s highest mountain from base to summit (it rises more than 33,000 feet from the ocean floor — Everest’s height is 29,000 feet).
• It — along with the rest of Hawaiian islands — are the most remote places on earth — nearly 2,500 miles from the closest continent.
• The telescopes on its summit are among the most sophisticated in the world. The space exploration phase were underscored by the fact that a Challenger astronaut was from here and astronauts trained here in preparation for the lunar landing.
• The mountain which on one side climbs up a desert and other a jungle it encompasses most of the planet’s ecosystems — from plains to arctic tundra.