Don Picken, resulted in allowing the residents who chose to do so to remain there for life. The opponents to closure pointed out that, although there were no active cases of leprosy in the colony, many of the residents were physically scarred by the disease to an extent that would make their integration into mainstream society difficult if not impossible. In total over the decades, more than 8,500 men, women and children living throughout the Hawaiian islands and diagnosed with leprosy were exiled to the colony by the Hawaiian government and legally declared dead. Geography The Kalaupapa Peninsula remains one of the most remote locations in Hawaii due to unique volcanic and geologic activity over millions of years. Molokai’s famous sea cliffs are responsible for this and are among the highest in the world at three thousand feet above sea level. Geologists thought that these cliffs were carved by wind and water erosion, but it is now believed that they formed after a third of the northern portion of the island collapsed into the sea. The offshore islands—'Ōkala, Mōkapu, and Huelo—support this theory, housing original plant species found on Molokai over two thousand years ago such as the rare native loulu palm. Around 230,000–300,000 years ago, an offshore shield volcano named Pu’u’uao erupted from the sea floor. The extremely hot and fast flowing pāhoehoe lava created a flat triangle of land which eventually cooled and connected to the main part of the island. Kalaupapa translated means “the flat plain”. Central to the challenging conditions under which residents survived on the peninsula was the scarcity of freshwater and its preservation. An interest in the Kalaupapa coastal aquifer was captured by conflicting early accounts of visitors Jules Remy (1893) and Nakuino (1878) who described Kauhako Crater lake, a central geomorphic feature of the Kalaupapa peninsula as containing salt or freshwater, respectively. Kauhako lake, a freshwater resource during certain times in Kalaupapa’s history, is approximately 248 m deep, dimensions, which give it the largest depth-to-area ratio for any lake on earth. The lake has a weak tidal connection to the ocean and the Kalaupapa peninsula is underlain by only a thin freshwater lens. Access to the Peninsula Until the construction of the Kalaupapa Airport in 1935, the only way into the peninsula was by boat or descending down the Kalaupapa Pali trail. Nowadays, accessing the peninsula via boat requires a special use permit.