I was plodding along, gasping for air, in the thin atmosphere of 12,000 feet on the slope of a cinder cone atop Mauna Kea when my prized lauhala hat from Tahiti blew off my head.

“I’ll get it,” said Dr. Fiorenzo Ugolini, soil scientist.

To my horror, he sprinted like an antelope after my hat as it bounded down the slope. My God, I thought, at 12,000 feet he’ll die of a heart attack before he’s gone 100 paces.

“Stop, stop! Forget it!” I shouted into the wind.

But my hat, with Dr. Ugollini in hot pursuit, quickly disappeared around the base of the cinder cone. I sat down to catch my breath during one of the most interesting scientific expeditions I’ve ever been on. (Yes, he recovered my hat and came back safe and sound.)

We were retracing the steps of prehistoric Hawaiians on the Big Island who created, amid this high level desolation, ruins that may be unique.

For it was here in the cold and wind atop Mauna Kea that the Hawaiians manufactured their most important cutting tool, the stone adze.

What’s more, the size of their factory, acres and acres of it, makes archaeologists whistle in amazement. It’s all there: stone quarries, work sites, huge mounds of stone chips.

“If I had seen mounds like this in Africa, I’d have assumed they had taken thousands of years to accumulate,” said Bill Barrera Jr., field director of anthropology at the Bishop Museum.

The purpose of the expedition was to start a survey of the work sites and to try to establish how old they are.

Our guides were two professors from the University of Washington, geologist Stephen Porter and soil scientist Ugolini. This is Porter’s second summer of study on the mountain. Ugolini had been there a month, which is why he has become acclimatized.

Members of the expedition included the Bishop museum’s Dr. Kenneth Emory and State archaeologist T. Stell Newman and Jean Martin, the Kahumokus (from Kona) and my stepsons.

Moviemaker George Tahara and two assistants lugged a heavy camera along.

At least, that’s the group that started. One of the four-wheel drive vehicles never made it to the top and three members of the expedition quit after hiking less than a quarter of a mile in that thin air.

The old Hawaiians must have been affected the same way. Then why did they walk from sea level to this incredible height just to chip out stone adzes?

“This one lava flow that came out of the summit (of Mauna Kea) was very dense,” explained geologist Porter. “And it seems to chip in the right way.”

He said the density of the rock at this elevation kept a good cutting edge while, at the same time, rock from this lava flow did not break as easily as other rock of the same density.

Apparently, old Hawaiian prospectors discovered this lava flow, then established what may be the largest and highest adze factory in the world.

“We don’t know, but they may have supplied adzes for the whole island and even other islands,” said Emory.

Porter said the main activity was concentrated in an area one-half to three-quarters of a mile wide and 1,000 to 1,500 feet vertically.

“The question is, how did they quarry these things out?” he said. “Even today it would require special tools to pull those huge chunks of rock loose. They must have had some special technique.”

“It is obvious in some places that they mined the cliff.”

During this stay on the mountain, the temperature at night has dropped to 21 _ degrees, Porter said. Ugolini pointed out where frost action has split rocks.

“The Hawaiians may have poured water into cracks in the rocks to split off chunks through freezing,” said Porter. “But this would be very sophisticated for people accustomed only to sea level temperatures.”

Nearly all of the large mounds of chips, where workers shaped the adze blanks, are below small shelter caves.

Porter said he has run across perhaps two dozen such work sites.

“There is a lake (Waiau) above the area where they could have gotten water,” he said. “However, there are indications that there may have been perennial snowbanks on Mauna Kea at that time and even a small glacier or two.

“This would give a source of water supply. It also may be the reason the mountain was called Mauna Kea — white mountain.”

Porter said some organic material deposited in sediment in the adze cave area is 895 years old.

Since sedimentation requires running water (to carry mud and silt down the mountain), this would be an indication that there may have been more moisture on Mauna Kea at that time.

“Today it is quite dry,” said Porter.

He said tentative carbon datings on a limpet shell found in an adze cave are modern. This may indicate that the adze factory was in use until the time of discovery of Hawaii by Capt. James Cook.

Emory brought along an archaeological report and photographs he made of the site in the 1930’s, the only scientific study made until now of the adze factory.

The photographs show that one of the many religious shrines of the adze-makers seems undisturbed.

Emory said he was particularly interested in the shrines because they are of an ancient type dating back to a style used in central Polynesia at the time the first canoe-load of settlers arrived in Hawaii.

Later on, the religious shrine, or heaiu, in Hawaii evolved into different types, but apparently the adze makers clung to the old style.

Emory said this would indicate that the adze makers, who must have been a powerful guild to control such an important adze factory, were very conservative.

Porter and Ugolini said they both feel Mauna Kea is one of the most interesting mountains in the world.

“You must realize that on this island you can go from jungle to a polar desert,” said Ugolini. “On Mauna Kea I see soils that are very similar to Antarctica. It is here a cold desert.”

Porter said he has found evidence of glaciation on Mauna Kea, possibly as recently as 9,200 years ago.

If I had to guess, I’d say it was gone by 12,000 years ago,” he said. “The glacier extended down to 11,000 feet. The thickest ice was 400 feet, the average about 200 to 250 feet. Only the tallest cinder cones were sticking out.”

What was the temperature of Waikiki Beach at this time?

“It was the same as it is now,” said Porter. “But it was considerably farther out and lower down.”