Haleakala

Dress warm! May sound funny, as you’re in Hawaii and all, but it was quite cold up on the crater! Beautiful views of the sunrise. :)

Don’t pay for a tour.

BEAUTIFUL SUNRISE! If you make the trip to the top, make sure you make it for the sunrise… after the sun is up, it looks somewhat blah.

I lived on Maui for a year as a supervisor of a youth group. One day we were hiking through Haleakala, with a group of about 6 guys. We didn’t know it until that day, but our washing machine had broken so all of our clothes were saturated with laundry soap. As we were talking around the crator, the soap was sudsing up and oozing down our legs. It looked strange, I’m sure. A few people we passed even asked what was up. That day a few guys were singing the song, Blister In The Sun by the Violent Femmes, so I had them teach it to me during the hike. An hour or so later, we hiked up a set of switchbacks and ended up on the top of a very narrow ridge, that was just above the clouds. On each side of us were cliffs with cloud cover just a few yards below, above us was nothing but blue skies…and all around us was ocean. All the land we could see was the little patch we were standing on and a ways up the trail.

We all just stood there in awe. It was an amazing moment, incredibly beautiful and amazing. Even after living in the Canadian Rockies for a few years, being a certified diver, and growing up in Monterey, CA, and now living in Utah, this was the most beautiful and amazing thing I have ever seen. I’ll never forget it.

My brother and I went cycling down Haleakala. It was unbelievably beautiful (and obviously easy cycling, as it was all downhill). It was really fantastic to see how drastically the landscape/environment changed with each decrease in elevation. I highly recommend it.