Haleakala, Hawaii – the house of the rising sun

Gosia — Sun, 25 Feb 2024 17:33:21 +0000

Haleakala is one of the best places which I visited in Hawaii. This was the most sublime spectacle I’ve ever seen…- that’s how Mark Twain describes Haleakala in his book Roughing it. I think that it doesn’t need a better recommendation. This is an exceptional place, which must be visited especially at sunrise and sunset while in Hawaii. Dormant vocano The Haleakala National Park includes two volcanoes that form the Hawaiian island of Maui. The beginnings of Haleakala volcano are about a million years back. At that time the volcano began to raise above the Pacific Ocean creating Maui island. Actually, Haleakala isn’t a crater, what you can see from the top is nothing more than two separate parts of a volcano that collapsed on each other creating a valley. Haleakala is 7,5 mile wide, 2,5 mile long and 3000 ft deep. It’s now considered a dormant volcano. Haleakala – one of the highest mountains in the world Haleakala is one of the highest mountains in the world. Although Mount Everest is assumed to be the highest, two Hawaiian mountains are actually higher, as long as we measure them from the sea bottom to the top. One of them is Mauna Kea, which I wrote about here, while the other is Haleakala on Maui Island. Halekala reaches 10,023 ft from sea level, while counting from the bottom of the ocean it reaches 30,000 ft tall, Mont Everest height is 8 848 m. Closer to the stars The first astronomical observatory in Hawaii was located at the top of Haleakala. Lack of light pollution and transparent air provide excellent conditions for space observation. In fact, Haleakala is one of the best places to observe space from the surface of the Earth. There’s Solar Mees Observatory that explores solar flares and their impact on energy flow and radiation. On the other hand, the second observatory – Maui Space Surveillance Site identifies and tracks all human-made objects in space, including space waste. Sensitive plants There are many endangered plants and animal species living in Haleakala. With some luck, you can see there famous Nene known also as Hawaiian goose. There’re also Silverswords – endemic plants, typical only for Haleakala Park. They can be recognised by characteristic silver hair. Although they can survive extreme weather conditions and live up to 90 years, they are extremely sensitive to the touch of people. Touching Silversword destroys small hair, protecting them from light and radiation damage – which result in immediate death. Altitude sickness The good news is that Haleakal’s summit is very easy to reach. You can walk here on the Halemau Trail or go by car. The road to the top is very winding and narrow in some places, and the whole route from Kahului’s town takes between one and a half to two hours. This road offers spectacular views, while at the very top of Haleakala the panorama spreads over 160 km. Moreover, it’s important to remember that Maui island has around 17 different climate zones and most of them are located in Haleakala park. At the top, the weather can change unexpectedly any time. Furthermore, it’s important to know that reaching the summit in such a short time may involve the risk of an altitude sickness. I had this on Mauna Kea and I don’t recommend it. Pain and dizziness, nausea, dehydration and breathing problems are a signal to evacuate from the top immediately. Being at a lower height relieves most of these symptoms, but drinking a lot of water is necessary to hydrate the body. The House of the (raising) Sun The first Polynesian settlers treated this place as sacred. In Hawaiian, Haleakala means House of the Sun. This name is inspired by the legend of the semi-god Maui who trapped the sun to extend the day. People have been coming to Haleakala since the earliest days to see the sunrise. I managed to see this place twice, during the day and just before the sunset. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t good during the day, because there was thick fog over Haleakala. On the other hand, what I saw just before sunset was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. As we were going to the top, the landscape was becoming increasingly barren. Green meadows were giving up place to mountain views. The setting sun and clouds made an amazing impression. When we got there I felt as if I were on the highest peak in the world. I literally had clouds under my feet, and a spectacular sunset ahead of me. Mark Twain describing his feelings from this place wrote: I felt like the last man, neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world. It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think the memory of it will remain with me always. Like this post, check out more here 🙂

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Mauna Kea – invisible Hawaiian cows, avalanches and a lot of more…

Gosia — Sun, 15 Nov 2015 11:15:42 +0000

This time, I won’t write on gorgeous Hawaiian beaches, turquoise Pacific, colorful underwater coral reef world, high cliffs, tropical rainforests or spectacular waterfalls. It’s time for bitter cold of Hawaiian tundra and inhospitable polar climate. Only on Hawaii, more precisely on Big Island is possible to swim in the warm ocean in the morning and go snowboarding in the evening. This island has 11 different climate zones. What’s more, the highest mountain in the world, to be exact extinct volcano – Mauna Kea is located here. Mauna Kea with the height of 33 000 ft (10 203 m) is higher than Mount Everest when measured form oceanic base but form the sea level it reaches 13 796 ft (4 205 m). Not only beautiful views attract few people there. Mauna Kea is famous for a perfect visibility and clean air. The sky is clear for 90% days of the year which enables perfect conditions to space exploration. The peak houses the world’s largest observatory. Some telescopes like Subaru or W.M. Keck are open for tourists. Unfortunately, 2-hour trip to the peak is full of surprises which can be really dangerous. There’re a lot of dangers. Narrow steep road, variable weather, blizzards, fogs, avalanches or even tempestuous winds are common here. Not to mention that driving to the top is strictly forbidden by most car rental companies. Obviously we had in mind all these warnings, but from our experience some of them can be rank similarly to those printed on coffee cups in McDonald’s. We started our trip on a sunny day. Driving along famous Saddle Road we could see not only changing landscape, from tropical forests to barren tundra, but also deteriorating weather conditions. We weren’t surprised by this fact, having taken into account our travel experience it had been expected that our visit there would be exact on one of these 10% days of the year which are in short awful. There’s another danger connected with the way to the Mauna Kea summit. It’s the only place where it’s possible to drive from the sea level to 13 796 ft (4 205 m) only in 2 hours. On the top there’s 40% less oxygen and the pressure is 60% lower than that on the sea level, not to mention about temperature which is below 0. Fast ascending can lead to altitude sickness. The first symptoms include: nausea, headaches, drowsiness, loss of balance, shallow breathing and dehydration. It can result in pulmonary and cerebral edema. In order to minimize the risk, we stopped off at a shelter where we could acclimatize on the height of 9 199 ft (2 804 m). Visiting the shelter can be really discouraging. Apart from numerous warnings we got to know that there’s also another danger – the risk of close meeting with cows! What’s more these cows have not only climbing abilities but also they are invisible! The fact that they are on this altitude is ridiculous on its own, let alone that they stealthily flash the road, remained unnoticed! But we saw it in person what these perfidious beasts can do with a ranger’s car. In brief, her car was totaled. Fortunately our journey to the Mauna Kea was safe, excluding the fog which accompanied us also on the top. By courtesy of W.M. Keck we could have an image of the landscape on the rest 90% clear days. Additionally during only 15 minutes which I spent on the top I experienced most of the first symptom of altitude sickness. I dehydrated very fast. I had shallow breathing, nausea and terrible headache. There was nothing else than fast return to the lower altitude. The weather conditions deteriorated and the road seemed endless. I had felt much better and better to the moment when we saw a cloud of smoke which was approaching very fast. It looked like the threat of close meeting with a horde of invisible cows. But what we saw next was much more irrational. It was a beat – up car with two passengers (they were dressed in swimming clothes and flip flops) two pit bulls and 2 surfboards inside! Damaged radiator, bitter cold, the way in the middle of nowhere, lac of visibility and to top it all off, the threat of wild cattle attack. That was the real expedition to the highest peak of the world! Damaged car on the way to Mauna Kea is a really big trouble. Insurance doesn’t cover it and towing is very expensive. Repairing the car was impossible so we decided to try go down. I cannot stop wondering how we managed to do it. Undoubtedly it was the most interesting experience on Mauna Kea 🙂 ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]

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Haleakala, Hawaii – the house of the rising sun

Mauna Kea – invisible Hawaiian cows, avalanches and a lot of more…