Is Mauna Kea open right now?

Conditions on the mountain right now

Measured at the stations, minutes old. The official hours page can't tell you this part: what the road actually feels like tonight.

At the Visitor Station (9,200 ft)

50°F, wind 4 mph.

At the summit (13,796 ft)

37°F, wind 31 mph, feels like 23°.

The hours that actually bind

• Visitor Information Station: 9 AM to 9 PM, every day of the year. Parking stays open after it closes.
• Summit access road: closed to visitors 30 minutes after sunset, reopening 30 minutes before sunrise. Nobody stargazes at the summit. Stargazing happens at the Visitor Station.
• Rangers ask you to acclimatise at least 30 minutes at the Visitor Station before driving higher, in both directions.
• Arrive 1.5 to 2 hours before sunset if the sunset is the point. The lot fills.

What actually closes it

The rangers publish their closure criteria, which is unusual and useful. Any one of these does it:

• Any ice or snow on the road.
• Winds over 55 mph for more than an hour, or gusts over 65 mph.
• Visibility under 50 feet.
• Anything else that makes the road unsafe.

Closures are a winter thing. Snowstorms have happened in summer up there, but almost every closure falls between December and March.