White mountain
Mauna is mountain and kea is white — for the snow that caps it most winters. A fuller form, Mauna a Wākea, reads as the mountain of Wākea, the sky father, which places it at the top of the Hawaiian genealogy rather than merely at the top of the island.
At 13,796 feet it is the highest point in the Pacific. Measured from its base on the sea floor it is taller than Everest.
Poliʻahu
The snow goddess Poliʻahu lives here, and her contests with Pele are the stories of the mountain against the volcano. Lake Waiau near the summit is associated with her.
The summit region holds burials, shrines and adze quarries, and is understood as the realm of the gods rather than a place one goes casually.
The telescopes
The dry, still air above the summit is among the best on earth for astronomy, and thirteen observatories were built there from the 1960s. Opposition to further construction, focused on the Thirty Meter Telescope, produced a sustained occupation of the access road in 2019 and became the largest Hawaiian protest movement in a generation. The dispute is unresolved.