Haleakala Crater-Day #1

This is a picture is at the start of our hike with the whole gang. From left to right-Raphael, Jaime, me, Kara, Miahone, Mihi, Abby, and Dr. Hammond. Bro. Bruner was taking the picture

Haleakala Crater. Our total mileage was 30 miles over 4 days! We hiked from 10,000ft to 3,000 ft and ended back at 8,000 ft. It was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of cool things that are unique to not only Maui, but to Haleakala.

We took the sliding sands trail down into the crater. It was like waking down black sand dunes made of course lava rock instead of soft sand. It really worked your calves carrying all the weight and trying to stop yourself from sliding down the mountain.

Standing in the middle of a silversword forest

This is the endemic and endangered silversword! It is monocarpic meaning that it blooms only once in its life and then dies. It will grow for about 6-8 years before it blooms. This one was right on the side of the trail, and it was really cool to see a blooming one up close!

The total mileage for the first day was 10mi. We ate lunch at Kapa'aloa cabin where we saw (and hand fed) nenes. Nene is the hawaii state bird and is endangered. It ovbiously has been feed by humans before because about 5 min after we arrived and started pulling out our lunches the nenes came flying in. They weren't shy at all and I touched them and fed them by hand.


From lunch we hiked 4 miles to Paliku cabin. This part of the trail was a bit nicer than sliding sands because we hiked on actual earth. This portion of the crater was extremely beautiful! When you turn a corner you can see out Kapu gap and in the distance was the Big Island. We also found Iliahe-or Maui Sandalwood tree-which is endemic to Maui and a very expensive and fragrant wood.
View of Big Island from Kapu Gap

Maui Sandalwood Tree
When we finally made it into Paliku, it was beautiful. We were all tired after hiking for 9 hrs and 10 miles!


My sweet sunburn-now permanent tan line-I guess that is what you get when you don't see the sun for 2 months and then you hike across a volcano!


The perfect way to end the day!