After we watched the sunrise over the Haleakala Crater, it was time for a good hike down into it. We didn’t have our backpacking stuff along, and I was pretty amped to get my bike put together later in the day for some riding, or it would have been pretty hard to get me away from packing out and spending a night or two down in the crater. There are backpacking sites, as well as cabins that the NPS stocks with wood.
Despite our hike needing to be limited to a day trip, it was pretty fantastic. We took off from the summit visitor center down the Sliding Sands Trail, and hiked to Ka Lu’u o ka ‘O’o, which is one of the many cinder cones down in the crater.
We started out pretty cold, as the wind chill values were down in the upper 20’s, which the park service workers commented was pretty rough even for up there- it was a particularly windy morning. But the wind eventually died out as we traveled lower, the sun warmed us, and layer after layer ended up transferring to our packs.
I thought it was great to be hiking above the cloud layers hanging over the ocean. It’s a surreal place to be, up in a volcanic crater, surrounded by super dry conditions, all the while looking down at rainforest and ocean. I’d love to someday make the backpack trip from the summit all the way down to the ocean near Kipahulu. I’d have to get my knees ready for that one.
I don’t feel like I’m done with the hiking in Haleakala by any means; I feel we only got a taste, but I’m not sure when we’ll have a chance to return. There are so many places in the world to visit. I’m glad we got out and took of few pictures to try to keep the experience with us.
When we got back to the visitor center at the summit, I let my Long Haul Trucker out of it’s box and put it together. All in all, it traveled well, but I did need to do a bit of minor wheel truing, as the hubs take a lot of pressure from the sides of the case. It’s a huge bike to be in an airline size case. But it works! I got a lot of looks and comments from tourists that were passing by on how much fun the coupler bike looked. Everyone wants to see the bike that splits in half.
To finish off the day, Alison took the rental car back down to the campground, and I followed on the Trucker. She had decided not to rent a bike for the trip, as she was fighting a cold pretty bad by the end of our hike.
We weren’t excited about our camp food that night, and buckled under the temptation of dropping down to Pai’a on the coast for a dinner of seafood burritos. I have no regrets about the decision, despite it not really being that short of drive. We drove back up the mountain and slept well.
Heading down into the crater...
Hiking around the rim of Ka Lu’u o ka ‘O’o...
Trucker getting out of it's box...
Yup.
Hiking route can be seen HERE.
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