Perfect Day #39 -- Hiking Haleakala Crater

This majestic 10,023-foot-high mountain contains the crater of the world's largest dormant volcano -- 3,000’ deep, 71/2 miles long by 21/2 miles wide, and encompassing 19 square miles. From sea level to 10,000 feet, the trip up Haleakala is covered in just 37 miles along a snaky road that reveals magnificent views of the isthmus of Maui, the West Maui Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. As you’ll hear many times, no paved road on earth climbs more steeply that Haleakala Highway. True or not, as bicyclers find out when they descend Haleakala, you’ll encounter countless switchbacks but no hairpin turns.

A Perfect Day of hiking in Haleakala Crater depends on your fitness, energy and other personal considerations. Don’t get carried away with understandable enthusiasm for exploring this incredible crater. When hiking in the crater, wear hiking or good jogging shoes, carry plenty of water and take along a warm jacket. For 24-hour park information, call 572-4400). Various parts of the park are regularly being upgraded so it’s important to know what is open or closed.

One mile from the Park entrance, Park Headquarters is open 7am-4pm, providing restrooms, public phones, some literature, backcountry camping and cabin permits, but no gas or food. Ten miles from the park entrance, the Haleakala Visitor Center (Call 572-9177) at the 9,740’ elevation is open from 6am to 3 p.m., for restrooms (renovated in 2002-03), no public phones, gas or food, heat, comfort, and a view behind glass of the wilderness, exhibits, books, maps, and information on guided hikes beginning at Sliding Sands and Hosmer Grove trailheads. Pay your $10 for car entrance after mile marker 10 and enter the park. If you come early, don’t be surprised if no one is at the entrance to collect fees. Strangely, in one of the busiest tourist sites in Hawaii, the Park service budget is too tight to pay for full-time fee collection.

Viewing the Crater

Perfect Days aims to provide a menu of relatively short descents and hiking experiences in Haleakala crater that provide marvelous crater views and that don’t require exhausting and challenging treks. For some visitors, it may be enough just to visit the Crater Observatory near the summit that, in addition to informative displays, provides outstanding views of the 7-mile by 3-mile crater. You can continue to the highest point on Maui, the Pu’u ‘Ula’ula Overlook (10,023 ft.), where a glass-enclosed lookout enables visitors to gather at sunrise for the 360-degree view without freezing vital body parts.

Sunrise on Haleakala
Usually spectacular, it takes just the right combination of clouds beneath clear skies for a great sunrise experience atop Haleakala. Call the weather forecast (871-5054) and, if the report is promising:

• dress very warmly (gloves, wool cap, scarf, extra blanket);
• allow at least two hours to drive to the summit from Kihei or Ka’anapali;
• get to the summit at least a half-hour early in order to find parking;
• plan to watch the sunrise outside in the open;
• hope for the best.

Sunrise begins between 5:45 and 7 am, but a Perfect Day at Haleakala’s crater rim starting at sunrise usually requires leaving your lodgings at about 3 a.m. for the 2-hour drive from the South or West shores to the summit of Haleakala. Hearty breakfasts at rustic, mountainside Kula Lodge on Rt. 377 (878-1535) are served starting at 6:30am – too late for sunrise visitors to the summit who will need to prepare their own breakfast snacks and coffee -- unless you’re on one of the excursions to Haleakala.

Staying overnight in a Kula vacation rental or one of Kula Lodge’s chalet’s at 3200’ is another enjoyable option for getting as close as possible to Haleakala’s summit before the morning drive up Haleakala Hwy. (378). Before leaving Kula Lodge, be sure to see the work of one of Hawaii’s foremost traditionalist painters in the Curtis Wilson Cost Gallery.
 
Hosmer Grove
To the left of the park entrance, Hosmer Grove can be the first or last stop at the park. If you’re heading to the summit for sunset, obviously it’s not the first stop, especially in the dark. But for many visitors, the easiest start for a Perfect Day exploring Haleakala can begin at Hosmer Grove Nature Loop, accessed from a short sideroad just after crossing the Park’s boundary. Less than a mile long, the trail is planted with native shrubs like aalii, ohia lehua, mamane and pukiawe. The Hawaii Nature Conservancy conducts a very worthwhile Hosmer Grove nature walk on Fridays at 9am. and takes about an hour. For the Hawaii Nature Conservancy’s latest schedule of hikes (and also trail maintenance “parties”) call 572-7849.

Waikamoi Preserve

The Preservecontains elements of most of Haleakala’s ecosystems and the state’s best remaining native rain forest (Koa, ‘ohia and others). You may see some of the 14 native Hawaiian bird species in the Preserve, eight of which are on the endangered species list (for example, scarlet i’iwi, crimson ‘apapane, the bright green ‘amakihi, ‘akohekohe, and yellow-green Maui creeper). The Preserve also is the only known habitat of Hawaii’s only native mammal, the Hawaiian Hoary Bat. The National Park Service leads hikes through parts of the 5,230-acre Waikamoi Preserve every Monday and Thursday morning at 9am on the Bird Loop Trail and the 3rd Sunday of the month at noon on the Boardwalk Trail.  (Call 572-4400 between 8am and 4pm HST) Contact the Nature Conservancy’s preserve manager (572-7849) to join a guided hike into the Preserve.

Leleiwi Lookout

For the first -- and one of the best -- views of the crater on the way up the volcano, after MM17 stop at the parking lot for the Leleiwi Lookout, just a few minutes walk from the parking lot. This awesome view will inspire you to see more of Haleakala’s summit from hiking trails.

White Hill Trail

Just a half-mile round-trip up from the Visitor Center, the White Hill Trail reveals superb views in all directions – steep cliffs falling away into the crater; Red Hill, the volcano’s highest point; the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island; and West Maui and its isthmus. White Hill is a comparatively easy climb but rocky and, in the early morning hours, you’ll need a flashlight to avoid tripping. If your lucky, the crater below will not be full of mist, revealing its sheer walls and cinder cones or perhaps the cinder cones will just peer through the clouds. Standing over the vast crater at sunrise is an eerie, otherworldly, unforgettable experience.

Trail Orientation
The crater’s trail system is fairly easy to understand and visualize. The first major trail past Park Headquarters, the Halemau’u Trail passes Holua Cabin, the Silversword Loop and meets up at the Bottomless Pit with a sidetrail from Sliding Sands Trail. (At the Silversword Loop Trail, between May and October brilliant Silversword flower stalks burst into purple sunflower-like blooms.) It’s almost 10 miles on Sliding Sands Trail from the Visitor Center to Paliku Cabin, passing Kapala’oa Cabin 6 miles along the way. Halemau’u Trail continues in an easterly direction to a point where it joins the Sliding Sands Trail to form a rough kind of V-shape not far from the Paliku Cabin & campground.

Thanks to about 300” of rain annually, scenic Paliku at the base of a 1,000’ cliff is both wet and green. From Paliku Cabin the Kaupo Trail heads southward along the cliffside of the caldera to a steep 8-mile descent down 6,000’ Kaupo Gap to an unpaved 4WD road that leads to Kaupo and the coast.

Short Hikes
Both the Halemau’u Trail and the Sliding Sands Trail offer short walks and hikes as well as full-day hikes that may include an overnight. For example, Halemau’u Trail zigzags down Leleiwi Pali to the crater floor. The grade is moderate and the views are spectacular. Take your time. Stop often. One of your views will be a look down Ko’olau Gap. In three miles from the viewpoint, you’ll reach the crater floor, a gate in the fence, and another decision point: continue through the broad meadow of tall grass to Holua Cabin or turn back. Continuing to Holua Cabin only makes sense if you have reserved the cabin or have a permit to stay overnight at the campground. Otherwise return the way you came.

Hiking Sliding Sands-Halemau’u Trails
For those of you who are ready for about eight demanding hours of unforgettable hiking, and can arrange for someone to drive another car and leave it at the Halemau’u Trailhead, you can:

• hike from the summit down Sliding Sands Trail 2500’ to the crater floor;
• cross the crater floor and visit the so-called “Bottomless Pit” and “Pele’s Paint Pot,” an arid, volcanic “Mars-scape” dotted with splashes of orange, red, gold, silver, and lavender;
• camp overnight at Holua Cabin or hike out on Halemau’u Trail.

Cabins & Tentsites

Hikers and campers may want to plan an overnight or even a second day at Holua Cabin, Paliku Cabin (6.3 miles from Holua) or Kapalaoa Cabin (3.8 miles from Holua) or their respective campgrounds. At least 3 months ahead, join the lottery for these cabins by contacting the National Park Service (Box 369, Makawao 96768, 572-9306). Tent campsites are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Register first at Park Headquarters.

For reference, Holua Cabin is 4 miles from the Halemau’u Trailhead (8 miles round trip); the Paliku Cabin/Campground is about 6½ miles from the Holua Cabin (12.5 miles roundtrip) – total 20½ miles round-trip.