All Around Maui: Halemau`u Trail. January 15, 2002

Hiking the beginning of Halemau`u Trail, in Haleakala National Park, was to be the first day-long use of my new digital camera. I learned some things (for next time) about how to use my camera better, to get better exposures in the lava landscape. I also learned something about my TIFF to JPEG conversion process (it compressed too much, so there are bad JPEG artifacts in these images). I didn't preserve the original TIFF images from this hike, so there's nothing I can do to improve the image quality at this point. Sorry. One more reason to redo this hike.

It takes an hour to drive to the summit from my house. I should consider myself lucky, because it takes more like 2.5-3 hours to get there from the resort areas where most tourists stay. I live in Upcountry to start with, so I have a big head start, and I don't have to drive through downtown to get up there.

Sunrise from the summit

I figured if I was going to get an early start on the trail (hopefully, to capture some of the good, early-morning light with the camera), I might as well get up a little earlier so that I can photograph sunrise from the summit. So I woke myself up at 4:15 am (sunrise was at 7:05 am), but then dawdled a little too long at home, and almost missed sunrise. As it turned out, the summit parking lot was full, so I had to park at the visitor's center just below the summit. I didn't have time to hike up to the actual summit, so instead I virtually ran up White Hill, which is located right there at the visitor's center, and gives you as many good sights to admire as the actual summit. I got the camera mounted on the tripod and ready to shoot just seconds before diffraction bent the first rays of direct sunlight over the clouds and onto me and my camera.

Then I had what seemed like no more than two minutes of good warm early light, as I frantically worked the unfamiliar camera in the windy, 45 degree air (I brought a thermometer). I didn't get any shots worth printing or worth bragging about, but they aren't quite so bad that I want to delete them before I can replace them with better ones.

In the photo at the left, you can see the Big Island off in the distance. The peak at the left is Mauna Kea. The middle peak is Mauna Loa. The right peak is Hualalai. The northernmost volcano on the Big Island, Kohala, is obscured by the clouds.





Halemau`u Trail

After sunrise at the summit, I got back in the truck and descended 2000 feet to the head of the Halemau`u Trail (8000 feet). This trail starts with switchbacks taking you down a steep ridge to the crater floor (6600 feet). The switchbacks go back and forth across the knife-edge of the ridge, so you get views down both sides of the ridge. One side views into the crater, and the other into Ko`olau Gap and Ke`anae Valley. At the bottom, the trail heads across the crater floor. The crater is so large that one can do only a very small part of the trail in one out-and-back day. The temperature on the crater floor was a delightful 62-64 degrees. Perfect for hiking in a tee shirt and shorts. You get your first sight into the crater about one mile from the trail head. I took a series of photos at this overlook, and tried to combine them into a panorama (below). The result isn't very good, but if you click on the panorama, you will be taken to a page showing thumbnails for the individual images that made up the shot. Some of these might be more viewable. View into the crater

Where the trail comes off the steep ridge and onto the flat crater floor, you are in a big grassy field, mixed with a`a lava formations. The lava has various native shrubs growing from it. The picture at the right is a closeup of the region in the picture at the left.

Lava tubes

There are various lava tubes throughout the summit region (and elsewhere on Maui). Here are a couple shots of one small lava tube.




Nene are nesting

The Nene is the Hawaiian goose, which is adapted to high elevations, and does not fly much. Look for the birds in the lower part of the picture at left. The birds let me get quite close before they started to back away, at which point I backed away in the other direction, and continued on the trail.




Holua Cabin

The National Park Service maintains three cabins in Haleakala crater. One of them is along Halemau`u Trail. The Haleakala brochure explains: "Reservations are by lottery. Lottery applications must be received two months prior to the first day of the month in which a reservation is requested. Cabins are rented to one group of up to 12 people per night. Stays are limited to three nights per month." I understand that the cabins are in quite high demand. This cabin has a large tank of nonpotable water (drinkable after treatment), and two outhouses. There are bunks inside.



Near the cabin, I found a particularly rugged patch of a`a, some interesting plants, and a big hole in the ground.





Silversword Loop

About 5 miles in, there's an optional diversion in the trail called Silversword Loop. I went around the loop and then headed back. That made for a 10 mile hike, which isn't super easy considering there's about 2000 feet of climbing, and the whole hike is at somewhat high elevation. There are actually fewer interesting silverswords to see on Silversword Loop than on the Sliding Sands Trail hike. Most of the silverswords on this loop are on the first half of the loop. The second half of the loop offers nice views into the cinder cone area of the crater (photo at right).

I need to do this hike again to get better pictures. I wasn't using my photographer brain enough, I guess, because I should have known that you can't trust the meter to do the right thing when you're in a mostly black lava landscape. Most of my pictures are overexposed by about two stops. Oh well, I will go back and do it better next time. I really just need to work slower. The thing is, I was trying to get the most miles in that I could, and still get back home in time to make it to Aikido class at 7 pm. As it turned out, my camera battery ran out shortly after my turnaround point in the hike, so I did the return half of the hike faster than the outgoing half. I got home with a couple hours to spare. (I have on backorder a "vertical grip" for the camera. The grip also powers the camera using six rechargable AA batteries. This should give me about three times the battery life of the small rechargeable battery that goes with the basic camera. I hope that this AA-pack should be enough for a full day of shooting. If not, I can always carry a second set of batteries in my pack.)