Day 10 - Haleakala Crater

FaceTime is amazing! This is the longest we have been away from Ariadne. Every time her smiling face pops up on the screen, we miss her, but can see she is having a great time with her grandparents. After being with Grammy and Gramps for a week, she now goes to Ba Ngoai, Ong Ngoai, and Cau! She's off on her next adventure as we are on ours!

Below is a picture of the stream next to our cottage yesterday morning after the rain and a picture this morning with no rain.  It's crazy how it can change from a raging river to a trickling stream!

Today we are going from sea level to 10,000 feet above sea level to see the Haleakala Crater. It is the world's largest dormant volcano and forms the core of the island of Maui. Being so high, the temperature change is drastic.  Before we left, we checked the weather at the top which was 42 degrees (temperature at our cabin was 90 degrees).The sunrise is supposed to be spectacular and many people get there by 5:30AM to see it.  For us, that means getting up at 2:30AM to make it.  So we decided sunrise wasn't as important as our sleep and being able to drive in daylight.

Many travel guides warn that you should not drive around the whole island.  Instead, you should backtrack through Hana again.  Even our audio tour warned against it and stopped its tour at the end of Hana.  After Hana Highway, you have to drive through Kaupo Road which has 7 miles of unpaved roads and potted paved roads.  If you get stuck, there's no cell coverage so you'll have to wait for someone to come by. Of course, this is the route we took in our Jeep (the main reason we rented it)!  It was extremely bumpy, but the views were amazing!

Finally after 2.5 hours of driving we arrived at the bottom of the road to  Haleakala.  Our car temperature said 80 degrees as we began the 10,000 feet ascent.  At the summit, it was 62 degrees. Lucky for us, the clouds did not completely cover the top, so we could see all the way to Big Island.  The views were spectacular as you peer down into the crater and see many more cindercones ("little volcanoes") which erupted from gas pressure build ups within the Haleakala Crater.

We took a 3 hour hike down into the crater. As we hiked down Keonehe'ehe'e  (Sliding Sands) Trail, we watched the clouds cover up the crater and blow away just as fast as they appeared. From our pictures it looks like smoke, but it's all clouds! After the hike we stopped at Leleiwi overlook on our drive down the mountain which was literally in the clouds.  The second we stepped into the clouds, the mist surrounded us. 

After Haleakala, we drove another 1.5 hours to west Maui (Lahaina) to spend the rest of this week.  Our longest stay in one place for this trip! :). We had dinner at Aloha Plate Mixed and saw a beautiful sunset.