Sunrise at Haleakala

Day 6 Monday, July 28th
Haleakala Sunrise Tour, Maui

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Wuh huh?

It’s way too early to be waking up as we stumble about our room getting ready for the ride up to the top of Haleakala. I even forgot to make coffee for myself. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even remember a whole lot between the alarm going off and ending up outside the boat. We found other people waiting outside where the shuttles pick up passengers. There were a few different companies that did the sunrise tour, so it was pretty busy for 3 am.

We found other people who were waiting for the same company we were and stayed with them. Apparently I was not the only one who forgot to have a cup of coffee yet. There were some grumpy folks wondering why the heck they were doing anything that required them to be up and ready to go at 3 am.

When our shuttle showed, we all piled in for the ride to their “base” before we went to the top. For those of you who ever plan on going to Maui and doing this tour, I highly recommend the company we used; Mountain Riders. From what we heard of others, they were hands down the best, and safest option. The ride to the “base” (and to the crater, for that matter) were pretty entertaining. Our guide talked the ENTIRE way. There were a few of us who really enjoyed the cultural history lesson we got on the way up, but there were many who were visibly angry about the amount of energy this guy managed to have at 3 am. Luckily, they had coffee at their home base, which was basically a big garage with a small office next to it. We had to watch one of those boring safety videos that they always show and no one pays attention to. They also loaded us up with all of this gear to wear at the top. It seemed a little excessive at the time.

The last time I felt sustained, bitter cold wind like we did getting out of the van at the summit, it was November in Wyoming. Hawaii is not supposed to be that cold! It was a good thing they gave us that extra layer! We were all huddled around the visitor’s center at the top (it’s a national park) facing east, and unfortunately, right into the wind. As the sky grew brighter, we could see deep into the crater. We watched as clouds formed when the wind bought the moist air up the side of the crater.

Those clouds were soon filling the crater so that it looked like we were on top of a fluffy pillow of white. It was a beautiful sight to behold…for a short time.
Soon after, those clouds came right up at us. We were literally in the clouds. It was a neat experience, but we couldn’t really see the sun break the horizon.

Just before we started our long descent down through the volcanic mountain called Maui, we were able to see the sun as it came up through the clouds.

Because of the number of bad, sometimes fatal, accidents involving bicyclists descending from the crater, the park service doesn’t allow people to bike down until you are out of the park. I am willing to bet that the accidents mostly involved people on the unguided trips that others from our ship had done. Once we had left the park, they found a place to pull over and we all piled out. They emptied the trailer that housed all of the bikes and equipment (helmets, etc.) for the descent. We got on the bikes and the guide gave us one last explanation of how it was going to work. The guide led us on his bike as we rode down single file, with the van and trailer following which prevented traffic from passing. This gave us the whole lane to travel in. When it was safe and convenient, we would pull over to let traffic pass and then begin riding again.

It may sound like a boring ride, but we were moving pretty fast the whole time (top speed was around 20 mph). There were only a couple of instances in which we even needed to pedal at all. During those breaks to let cars pass, we could peel off layers and the guide would tell us some story about the history of Maui. He was really knowledgeable about the island.
These stops also gave us a chance to take in the some of the beautiful views that Maui has to offer. We stopped about halfway down at this small, local store for a quick breakfast. There were some unique flowers that I took pictures of at the store and happened to catch the bee in mid-flight you see here.

After breakfast, we continued down and ended in the little hippie town of Paia (Woody Harrelson is a local). It was a good thing we were done when we got there, too, because it started POURING as we piled back into the van. When we got back, we spent the rest of our day napping poolside. We had a Big Island waiting for us the next day! It wasn't until later that week that we found out some of the people on our ship got into accidents on the unguided tours. One man separated his shoulder. Another was going too fast and lost control, crossing the road (luckily there were no cars) and went off the road, getting fairly banged up.