Monday, July 27, 2009

Maui and Haleakala National Park

sunset in MauiAfter some time on the Big Island of Hawaii, I went to Maui for a few days. I did not stay long enough to see the whole island, so I don’t have a lot of story to tell on this island. But I will share a few pictures. I used the guide-book Maui Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook, to plan activities and optimize my time for the short stay on the Island. All the Hawaii guides in that series were excellent.

Maui West Coast

I arrived via commuter airplane in the morning, and since it was too early to check in to my condo, I drove from the airport towards the west coast. After Lunch in Lahania, I continued the drive up the west coast past Kapalua where there was some very scenic pictures. There was lots of broken windshield glass in some of the viewpoint parking lots, so I did not want to leave my car with all my bags unattended while hike any of the trailheads. I did stop at the shark-tooth rock formation for a quick look.

Maui West Coast, shark's tooth rock formation
Maui West Coast

On the second day, I drove up to the east summit in Haleakala National Park. I had looked into a friends suggestion that some bike tour companies would drop you at the top and let you ride down. However the park service no longer allows tour comanies to drop off cyclists in the park. There were still cycling tours that started at the park boundary, but that wasn't enough to be worth it to ride only the bottom half of the volcano. So I decided to attempt a trail run/hike from the top. The summit was 10,023ft, where I could look down on the clouds and see some of the other islands towering in the distance.

Haleakala National Park, Maui.
Haleakala National Park, Maui.

I hiked down into the crater for an 8 mile run/fastpack hike. I needed a trail run for my training for the next trail run I was originally planning, but with my camera bag it was more of a fast hike down 1500 ft into the caldera to the Ka Lu’u o ka ‘O’o crater and back. There was an amazing splattering of colors mixed into the dirt in the hills of the main caldera. In addition to the reds and greens, there was a lot of grey which gave a false visual sense of shade, so I kept forgetting the sun was directly overhead and un-blocked. The altitude and grey rock also made it difficult to hit the right camera settings. After the hike I made a quick trip up to the actual summit overlook, and then returned to my sea level condo to sleep off the altitude headache. Walking to dinner, I did not have my camera bag and misse the oppotunity to take pictures of an awesome sunset.

Haleakala National Park, Maui.
Haleakala National Park, Maui.

The final day I took a morning snorkeling trip to Molokini crater. There was a swell from the south that reduced visibility. After having such excellent snorkeling on the Big Island, this was a bit of a let-down. I spent the rest of the afternoon as a rest day lounging round the beach and re-packing to prepare for the next stop on Kauai. This last evening, I was better prepared for some sunset pictures.

More pictures posted HERE

Sunset in Maui
Sunset in Maui
Sunset in Maui
Sunset in Maui

Related Posts:

2 comments:

  1. Wow! John. Good stories and photos. I was in Maui in March and I have to admit, most of my time was spent at Luau's and playing on the beach. You're such an adventurer! Are you alone on this trip? I couldn't go by myself. How long are you staying in Hawaii?

    -Catherine Averitt

    ReplyDelete
  2. Catherine, I was in Hawaii for 2.5 weeks, mostly on the big island and then 3 nights each on Maui and Kauai. Half this trip with friends and half on my own. I returned from Hawaii a month ago and am just a little behind in posting.

    ReplyDelete

Enter a comment in the box below.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin