Haleakala Volcanic Crater

I'm back! Hello all! Time to talk about Maui.

About a week ago I went to Maui with a coworker to visit Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge. We weren't even there for two full days, so we didn't see much of Maui, but on Thursday we were given a vehicle and drove up to Haleakala.

It took us quite a while to get up there, because it was a very twisty road, with lots of swung out turns. I'm glad Trish was driving and not me (plus then I got to take a bazillion pictures). Luckily, we also had some folks looking out for us:

Always good to have a cattle guard keeping watch... Actually, the sign indicates a metal pop up gate like the ones in secure parking lots in case some of the open range cattle that graze on the mountain decide to make a run for it.

About halfway up there's a visitors' center where we stopped to use the bathroom and they have some funky plants. I think the species is really old... See if you can actually read the sign.



Now for the best part: the crater. It is unbelievably gorgeous and awe inspiring, and neither my words nor my pictures can do it justice, but I'll let my pictures try.






Trish and I didn't expect to be allowed to leave the refuge and go sightseeing, so I had been thinking I'd come back to Maui just for the day to drive around the island and see Haleakala. It absolutely would have been worth it.

After we stopped at the crater, we went up a few hundred more feet to the absolute summit, and this is what the crater looked like from there, all filled with clouds.


Another very cool thing is that you can see the Big Island from the summit:


Don't these clouds look like snow? I just loved that!


On our drive back down we had some incredible views of the west side of Maui and the Pacific, but it was hard to get good pictures from the car on that twisty road. Here's my best shot.


So our visit to Haleakala made up for the previous day's weed pulling. I'll post about that too, when I put up the pictures from Kealia Pond. If you ever get the chance, Haleakala is one of those must sees in life -- plus, you get to think about how it could actually blow while you're standing there. It's just dormant, not extinct...