The Hawaiian Hiatus: Part 2 – Haleakala National Park

By Ryan LuckieUncategorized
This is Part 2 of our series documenting our 2017 Summer vacation to Hawaii.  For additional entries, click the links below.

Ryan & Amanda’s Hawaiian Hiatus – Part 1

Maui

Our cruise’s first destination was two days and one night in Maui.  We had two things on the agenda in Maui, the famous “Road to Hana” drive along the coast, with many stops along the way, and Haleakala National Park.  We’d arranged for a 2 day car rental of a Mustang convertible.  
Things got off to a bit of slow start; there was no shuttle pickup for Enterprise at the cruise port and we ended up walking on what seemed to be an unnecessarily long pedestrian path out of the port area.  Soon we were out of the port area and in an Uber on our way to pick up the rental car.
Checkout went well and we were soon on our way.  We’d decided that day 1 was going to Haleakala National Park.   We stopped at a local store and bought some water, chips, and a sandwich to split for lunch, it was pretty fortunate we stopped when we did, because it was one of the last stores before entering the park area.
Haleakala means ‘House of the Sun’

The peak of the volcano is just over 10,000 feet.

Part of my continuing series called, “Photographs of my Photographer”
Near the visitors parking lot there is an observatory.  On our next trip to Maui, we’d like to stay late and view the stars from the summit.  As you will see in photos later, the summit of Haleakala is above the cloud line and provides excellent viewing conditions.  

The sliding sands trail descends 3000 feet from the summit into the volcanic crater.

Much like the Grand Canyon, the immense scale of this natural wonder is impossible to capture in photograph.

The start of our trip was very windy and we were headed downhill so we kept our jackets on for both warmth and good sun protection.  Notice the trail wrapping around the crater rim to the right.

Haleakala is one of the quietest places on the planet as it is devoid of any ambient noise.  On the way back up we passed a couple hiking about two miles in with a baby.  A bit later we could hear the baby crying from about a mile away.

One of the more crowded sections of the trail… two people are visible within the next quarter mile.  There were times where we could see 1 mile clear in every direction and were certain no one was within a mile of us.

Haleakala is home to some extremely rare plant life.  This is a Silversword.
Click on any picture to see it in a larger size, especially the panoramas below.

Rock stacks such as these were common throughout the park as well as other locales we visited in Hawaii.  There is a strong movement within the park administration and scientific community to stop the practice, as it essentially modifies the landscape and makes research of the habitat more difficult.

Every time we made our way around a corner we were awestruck with another amazing view.  The camera almost never went away.

 After not too long we were approaching the bottom of the crater…

Vast wilderness in every direction.  You had your choice of green, red, or black wilderness.

We decided to head through black wilderness into red wilderness.

On our descent, we had seen a trail that allowed you to peak into the hole at the top of a cinder cone, pictured below.  We had set off into the center of the crater trying to find it, but determined it was an unauthorized trail not shown on the map after exploring the bottom.  On our way up we were concerned both with time and our own energy levels, so we didn’t attempt to find the rouge trail.

The trail wrapped around this cinder cone.  We followed that trail 2/3 of the way around and turned back, once we definitively determined this was not the cinder cone we had seen on the way down and the trail was not going to allow us to approach the vent.

We’d have loved to explore more, but we were determined to make it up to the peak in time for sunset.  Park guides suggest it will take about twice as long to climb back up the mountain as down, both because of the elevation and the altitude.

It was extraordinary to look in front of us and see the green towering mountain…

… and then turn around and see a vast desert wilderness.

We took very few pictures on our way back up.  After the first of four miles of uphill we were brutally in pain.  By the time we were in our final two miles we were taking breaks every 100 steps.
There are some very cool elevation and satellite views of our hike shown here.  I believe Strava has removed our “non moving” time, substantially increasing our pace.
Once back at the top we bundled up with all the heaviest clothes we had brought.  The peak will get below freezing most nights.  We had made good time back up the mountain and staked out a good spot at the peak.  I packed the car before the sun began its approach on the cloud line, so we could get a fast start down the mountain.  We had a 9 PM dinner reservation back on the boat, Google maps described the drive as 75 minutes, and sunset was at 6:52 PM.

One of my favorites.

No we weren’t the only ones up there, the parking lot and viewing area was actually quite crowded.

About this time I realized the pictures looked a lot better just before the sunset, when we were getting more light reflecting off the top of the clouds.  We waited a few more minutes and began to sneak away.

We were the first car out of the parking lot and were soon speeding down the swtichbacks.  Along the way we decided that we were in too much pain and too tired to go back out the next day, and so we’d make our second day in Maui a recovery day.  With a little bit of luck, good planning, and teamwork, we gassed up the car, turned it in, caught an Uber back to the port, and were in our room with 30 minutes to prepare for dinner.  We actually made it to the restaurant with about a minute to spare.  Unfortunately when I started getting ready I discovered my calves were badly sunburned.

When we saw the weather the next day we were awfully glad we’d decided to turn the rental car in and take it easy.  Maui had a wet day.  We relaxed, explored the ship, and stayed out of the sun.

Maui was by far one of our favorite islands and it is one I’m sure we will come back to.  Perhaps next time we will allocate two days for the road trip to Hana and get to space it out and enjoy it a bit more than we would have if we’d tried to force it into a day.  We’ve got no regrets though, Haleakala was a true highlight of our trip, we highly recommend visiting if you are ever in Maui.

I know this post only covered about one day, but it was one heck of a day.  Our next post will cover our two days on The Big Island, featuring a helicopter tour of Volcanoes National Park, and Coffee & Chocolate and Beer in Kona.