Haleakala National Park: Above The Clouds

I am going to shift gears from what I did in Oahu and instead talk about what I did in Maui while on my Hawaii trip. This blog post and the next one will highlight the two major attractions on the island of Maui, and the first one I will talk about is Haleakala National Park. Haleakala National Park is a national park that consists of the dormant volcano of Haleakala and the surrounding wilderness area. This area is best known for watching sunrises and/or sunsets (though you must book a reservation to see the sunrise from the top of Haleakala National Park). I was not able to obtain one of the very few reservations available on the morning that we were going up, but this was not going to stop me from going after the reservation time.

The road up to the summit of Haleakala National Park is long and windy, but also well-paved and well-maintained. As we went up the road and higher in elevation, there were lookout spots of the entire west side of the island of Maui and the mountain of West Maui. We entered the gate to Haleakala National Park, and there was a change of landscape from greenery to a barren, brown, and rocky landscape. There was also some precarious cliffside driving with no guardrails, but we eventually made it to the summit.

We were over 10,000 feet above sea level (10,023 ft. or 3,055m), which was the highest I have ever been in my life. At the summit, there was a staircase that led to a viewing area. Not thinking about the effects of a high altitude on my body, I rushed up the staircase to the viewing area, only to be gasping for air.

Regardless of that, the views up here were sensational (even more so than Diamond Head). Two things shocked me while I was at the summit. The first thing was that I was up above the clouds (while not inside an airplane this time), which was something I have never experienced before. The second thing was how far you could see. I felt like I was watching the whole of the island of Maui and the surrounding Pacific Ocean, despite some cloud cover. On the summit, there was also an observatory, which was a great place to build an observatory on when I really thought about it.

A few hundred feet down the summit was a visitor center, where we got to see the various animals that roamed the area, including the Nene (also known as the Hawaiian goose). There were also more views of the valley leading to the actual volcano as well. The landscape looked like a quarry or a mine, even though this was a natural formation.

I recommend going up to the summit of Haleakala National Park on any time of the day. If you are one of the lucky few that can view the sunrise or sunset at the summit, then even better. For me, this visit was one of the most memorable places of my time in Maui.

Pictures and videos below: