Haleakala

From Wikipedia – The Haleakalā volcano on Maui features a very large crater with numerous cinder cones, Hosmer’s Grove of alien trees, the Kipahulu section’s scenic pools of freshwater fish, and the Nene, a native Hawaiian goose. The park protects the greatest number of endangered species within a U.S. National Park.

• Established: 08/01/1916
• Annual Visitors: 1,044,084
• Size: 33,265 acres

E: Haleakala National Park, Maui, Hawaii Jan. 24, 2020

We left American Samoa on a red eye from Pago Pago to Honolulu then transferred to Kahului Airport in Maui, landing at 8:30AM. The flight from Pago Pago was 5 hours 40 minutes and the flight from Honolulu to Maui was about 20 minutes flying time. We do not like taking 11pm flights, but there was not a choice from Am. Samoa as they only have two flights there a week from the east. They are on on Hawaiian Airlines out of Honolulu. The red eye also allows for a full day to play in Maui and that we did…after we retrieved our lost luggage. : ( We came in at 8:30AM, next flight was 9AM, no luggage, next flight was 9:30, then 10, nope, no luggage. It arrived on the 11 AM flight and they delivered it to The Maui Seaside Hotel where we pre-booked a room close to the airport and close to the access road to Haleakala and the NP Visitors Center.

Due to the luggage coming in later and the hotel room not being ready until 4pm, we picked up our rental car and drove across the Isthmus of the island to Ma’alea, a 20-minute drive. Gary looked up a restaurant on Google and we hit the jackpot. Nalu’s South Shore Grill was fabulous! We split a Corn Flake and toasted macadamia nut encrusted French Toast stuffed with a lilikoi (passion fruit) marmalade cream with real maple syrup which, coming from VT originally, is a big preference of ours. We also shared a fruit platter with local papaya, bananas, pineapple and grapes; fabulous seeded and good oatmeal granola and Greek yogurt …need I say more?!

Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge was our next stop, also on the Ma’alea side of the island. The protected ponds and birds were a great way to walk around and enjoy being outside. The ponds are man-made, naturally fed with fresh water. A sanctuary for birds and very close to the sea.

We then headed just a few miles further in the car to a board walk along the beach. It too was a protected space for wildlife and literally beachside. The fresh water and sea water are yards apart in places but they try to keep a huge natural looking sand barrier so the salt water does not damage the ecosystem in the marshes. While we were looking at the ocean at the end of the roughly ¾ mile boardwalk we could see whales in the distance! It is Humpback Whale mating time right now and they were jumping, diving, splashing and having a great time. We were told to go to McGregor Point to view them so we got back in the car and drove to the point, only about 15 minutes away. It was soooo worth it!! We saw several whales breaching, both large and small ones. I can easily say this by chance, naturally occurring, free encounter was one of THE highlights of this trip!

Tired and ready for a nap we went to the hotel to await the room being ready…and to see if our luggage arrived! Phew, got our bags but needed to hang out by the pool for a while…rough life! After a sunburned nap we drove to a grocery store for snacks and a beer. The room at the Maui Seaside Hotel was now ready. We walked to dinner at the neighboring hotel and settled in for another busy day tomorrow chasing the National Parks!

Haleakala Day 2 Jan 25, 2020 Journal

E: Aloha!

Right outside the window of our room is a large canoe club. The canoes are large multi manned boats and some are outriggers with the balancing weight on one side and the canoe on the other and some have double boats that are attached to one another. There was a race this morning and we were able to watch the whole regatta from our room. Very fun and different from anything we have ever seen since the boats are very traditionally Hawaiian. And the fact that we live in the desert!

Haleakala is 10,023 ft above sea level. Our goal today was to drive to the top and stop at lookout points, go to the visitor’s center, walk on trails a bit and take our time.

Per recommendations on the NP website and the known height of the mountain, I had packed a lot of warm clothes for this part of the trip: layers including a light down jacket, gloves, leggings and warm socks in addition to a rain jacket which I have already used several times due to heavy rain fall in America Samoa.  After breakfast at the Maui Seaside Hotel we hopped in our rental car, asked Google directions to the mountain and headed out. The mountain was visibly clear to the top in the AM and like most high mountains, it gets socked in with clouds very quickly late AM to early afternoon. The road to the top is about 40 miles long but due to the slow, very windy road it took an hour and 20 minutes to get there. We lucked out with the weather today! It was 53 degrees at the top. For us Phoenicians it was still chilly but it can get to 35-40 degrees up there in bad weather. It was clear and beautiful with no wind! We could see the Big Island’s Mauna Kea with snow on its roughly 13,800 foot top and Mauna Loa at just a few hundred feet lower 100 miles in the distance.

There are two visitor’s centers. One at about 7000 ft high, a good place to stop to get a bit acclimated and to get our traditional souvenirs. We get a NP pin for that park, a post card and a stamp for our NPs book. Hawaii Pacific Parks Association has a membership you can buy for $50.00 for a “Family”. It gives you 15% off all their visitor’s centers, both in Hawaii and on Am. Samoa. We did not know about it in Am. Samoa but did purchase the membership at Haleakala… to support the Hawaiian Pacific Parks …and we got a key chain, membership card and 15% off all our gadgets we bought too.

The second visitor’s center is just a ½ mile below the summit.

I had done some research and saw that, not too far out of the way, after coming down from Haleakala there is a Lavender farm. Ali’i Kula Lavender Farm (https://www.aliikulalavender.com/)  was peaceful and lovely. Beautiful ocean views from its very sloping gardens. Buddha statues were throughout the gardens of many different flowers with benches along the many natural paths to sit and contemplate how wonderful our life is and how pleased we are to have planned our lives in such a way to enable us to travel the world! The farm was at 4,000’, so still had temperatures in the 60s.

We had worked up an appetite so we decided to take the roads back to Nalu’s South Shore Grill and have another meal there before going back to the hotel in Kahului. We started with a local coconut lager followed by yet another great meal. This time ordering volcano fries (Hawaiian spices and black pepper aioli sauce over them) and burgers on wooden plates with fresh greens and wonderful cheeses between a Hawaiian bread roll. The 3 water containers you can help yourself too are 1. Strawberry mint infused, 2. Watermelon cucumber and 3. Pineapple ginger all floating in glass jugs. Our kind of place with indoor and outdoor seating, great hip and cool staff and a variety of clientele, both locals and passers through like ourselves.

We headed back to the hotel, enjoyed the waterfront location and got to bed early. Tomorrow we take an AM flight to Hilo on the Big Island to start our Volcanoes NP Park tour!