mauna kea from the air

The Hilo runway is almost directly lined up with Hawaii's "White Mountain," Mauna Kea, so flights taking off to the west will generally turn left or right to miss the mountain.  Not this time.

On an inter-island flight from Hilo, our pilot received a clearance to climb directly over Mauna Kea from takeoff, en route to Honolulu.  The DC-9's climb matched the mountain's slope, so we stayed close to the ground all the way up, and then shot out over the observatory domes at the top.  Here is my right-side window view (scanned color slides).