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Haleakala National Park

Getting to Hawaii’s Haleakala National Park requires a 27 mile drive up a volcano where you can see cinder cones and look down on the clouds.

Hawaii

1999, 2018

About The Park

Haleakala National Park is a massive shield volcano that takes up more 75% of the Hawaiian island of Maui. It’s Hawaiian for ‘house of the sun’ and rises 10,023 feet (3,055m). The crater is 3,000’ deep, 27 miles around and has an area of 25 square miles. It hasn’t erupted in over 300 years but the scientists prefer to view it as dormant and not extinct.

Getting to the summit is a long 27 mile drive up the mountain and by the time you get to the top you’ve had enough of the drive. It’s an interesting and fairly scenic drive. You’re looking down at the lush Hawaiian greenery in some places and the landscape is framed by the sea in others. It certainly worth stopping to take a few pictures and enjoy the view which you can’t do if you have to concentrate on the drive. The road is paved and well-maintained but there are lots of blind curves, hairpin turns and steep drop-offs. Driving this road requires every bit of your concentration whether you’re going up and especially when you’re going down.

When you get to the summit there is a visitor center and beautiful views looking out over the Haleakala crater. This crater is not volcanic in origin and technically isn’t a caldera which is formed when the summit of a volcano collapses. Scientists believe that the crater was formed by the merging of two headwalls of two valleys at the top.

The weather at the top can be quite a bit chillier than it was down at the bottom when you started the drive up. It can be wet and windy and the wind chill can make it feel colder than the thermometer says. Conversely, on hot, sunny days, up in the thin air at 10,000 feet, the sun can be intense and make hiking down into the crater that much more challenging. Especially when you have to hike back up.

When you take in the scene at the top, as you look down into the crater, you get the feeling that you are on the surface of another planet. It’s a stark but colorful landscape, of rust and brown, with cinder cones rising from the surface. It’s both unusual and beautiful in its desolation.

The trip down the mountain is the more exciting drive in the sense that it is a more dangerous drive. Gravity is giving you that extra push and strives to make the 3,000 pound vehicle that you are driving go faster than you would like. You spend a lot of time riding your brakes which can cause them to overheat and fail. In circumstances like this it is better to use a low gear to slow your descent instead of braking constantly. Stopping to take in the view and relax a bit can give your brakes a chance to cool off. Remember, this is a rental car and you have no idea as to how it is maintained.

A friend of mine did have his brakes fail on the trip down the mountain but fortunately he was down near the bottom of the mountain and was able to coast to a stop. There are many points on the mountain where a loss of brakes could have very serious consequences.

The road up the mountain is closed at 5:00 P.M. and reopens at 7:00 A.M. There is one exception. You can, if you are lucky, get one of the 50 permits a day to view the sunrise from the top of the mountain. The permit allows you to enter the park between 3:00 A.M and 7:00 A.M. The downside is you have to drive up the mountain in the dark. I didn’t have any interest in doing this since it would mean getting up at 2 o’clock in the morning to drive over to the Haleakala Highway for the drive up the mountain in time to be there for the sunrise. Driving up that mountain in the dark would have been challenging and, as much as I would’ve liked to see the sunrise from Haleakala, I decided it wasn’t going to work for me.

There are sunset and stargazing tours permitted within the national park. You can arrive at sunset and stay around and look through telescopes after dark. At 10,000 feet you’re generally above the clouds and the stars are bright and vivid and the sky is beautiful. The sky at the top is one of those places that is ideal for stargazing. For this reason there are a number of large telescopes situated away from the national park visitor center. These are not open to the public.

To the Hawaiians Haleakala is a sacred place and the observatories at the top are a desecration. They have gone to great lengths to oppose a new more powerful telescope slated to be built there. I imagine they’re not thrilled with Haleakala being a National Park and the throngs of tourists who make their way to the top to view this natural wonder. For the moment it seems they’ve drawn their line in the sand at the new telescope.

Another popular activity is biking down the mountain. There are tour companies that will drive you and your bike (rentals available) up to 6,500 feet and guide you down the mountain. They used to have tours that traveled the entire 27 miles down (from 10,000 feet) but after some fatal accidents the Park Service suspended biking within the national park. At the 6,500 foot level you are outside the national park.

Maui in Hawaiian Legend

According to Hawaiian legend the demigod Maui pulled the Hawaiian Islands up from the sea. His next feat was to climb Haleakala and lasso the sun and get it to agree to make the days longer so that his mother, who complained that the days were too short to dry her clothes, had more time for them to dry. The sun agreed to make the days longer in summer and shorter in winter. All this, and more of the legend of Maui, was popularized in the song ‘You’re Welcome’ composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and sung by Dwayne Johnson in the Disney movie Moana.

Despite these feats that make up the legend of the demigod Maui, the island of Maui is not named after the demigod Maui but for an ancient, also legendary, first settler of the island who himself was named after the demigod Maui.

Wildlife

Hawaii’s state bird, the Nene Goose, is seen along the slopes. The summit area has a variety of exotic birds among them the Hawaiian Short-Eared Owl, Hawaiian Petrel, ring-necked pheasants and many smaller and very colorful birds.

Due to Hawaii’s island location any wildlife, other than birds, is generally non-native. Animals like rats, dogs, pigs, cats and mongooses were brought here by settlers or stowed away in the boats.

Lodging

There is no lodging in Haleakala National Park. There is some limited ability to camp out. Generally, you will be staying somewhere on Maui and the National Park is a day(s) excursion.

Hiking

if you’re planning a trip up to the summit, and especially if you want to do some hiking, it might be a good idea to consult the local weather forecast for the summit as that might change your plans if you have flexibility as to what day you can do this.

Hiking at the summit is considered strenuous. Between the altitude, the lack of shade and the significant elevation change, it is difficult hiking. Altitude sickness, hypothermia (it can be cold and windy) and dehydration are forces to be reckoned with. Hikes from the summit will have you descending first and the basic rule of thumb is that for every hour down it will take two hours to travel that same distance back up. Bring lots of water. Don’t worry about the weight of it. As you drink it your load will get lighter. Don’t save it up. You want to avoid dehydration instead of having to deal with it.

Sliding Sands Trail

This trail starts at the visitor center and descends into the crater. It is an out-and-back hike and you can walk as little or as much of it as you want. Most people only take it a short distance to get the flavor of the place and turn back. You can take it to the crater floor but that is a 3.9 mile one-way hike that will have you descend 2,000’.

For other trails, that descend from the summit and travel down the mountain for miles, the Park Service recommends parking at a parking area and hitch-hiking to the summit. Of course, if you happen to have two cars you can leave one at the lower destination and drive to the summit to do the hike.

Pipiwai Trail

This is a very scenic and highly rated trail. If you take the drive to Hana, about 30 minutes past Hana, you get to the coastal district of Haleakala National Park. This is a 4-mile out-and-back hike with the trail head accessed behind the Kipahulu Visitor Center. After about ½ mile you reach the overlook for the 185’ Makahiku Falls. If you continue it is about another mile-and-a-half to the 400’ Waimoku Falls. The Park’s Service considers this a moderately strenuous hike due to the length since the elevation change is only 800’.

Helicopter Tours

When I was there in 1999 I took a one-hour helicopter tour that circled the island. It took me over the Haleakala volcano which was a spectacular sight from the air. The tour also took us into the West Maui Mountains where the pilot had us in a canyon below the surrounding rim. It was windy and I watched with great trepidation as he seemed to be wrestling with the stick with two hands while I was looking out at the rotors wondering if we were going to clip the side of the canyon. I couldn’t wait for him to get out of there. That was at the beginning of the tour and, fortunately, the rest of the hour was uneventful and very scenic and interesting.

Other Points of Interest

West Maui Mountains

As I mentioned above, 75% of the island is taken up by the Haleakala volcano. The other 25%, the western part of the island, is formed by the volcano Mauna Kahalawai which is also known as the West Maui Mountains. These are extremely steep, rugged mountains which, if you are staying along the West Coast of Maui, provide a beautiful backdrop with the ocean on one side and these mountains on the other with the hotels in between.

Hawaii Route 30

If you are staying along the West Maui coast you can easily reach this road which winds for about 35 miles along the northern tip of Maui. If is off limits to most rental vehicles and, while it is paved, it can be a dangerous road. It is narrow and winds along the cliffs with many blind curves. There are signs at some curves that say to honk your horn to warn oncoming drivers of your presence. Needless to say you travel slowly not knowing what is around the next bend. It is not an easy road to drive but it is quite scenic and an exciting drive. It eventually leads into the Hana Highway so it can be combined with that drive for a long day of very scenic driving.

Hana Highway

This is a 68-mile drive that wraps around the east coast of Maui. It has 620 hairpin curves and can literally, by the time you reach Hana, have your stomach churning. Mine was. The road is quite an experience and a beautiful drive through lush Hawaiian scenery. There are waterfalls, freshwater pools, hiking trails, exotic plants and pretty flowers.

It is also a drive that you will likely take once. It will take 2.5 to 3 hours to travel the 68 miles and you probably will be taking it back. When I drove this in 1999 I didn’t think the town of Hana was very interesting nor very attractive. The public beach was not nearly as nice as the hotel and public beaches along the western coast of Maui. By far, the best scenery is on the drive to Hana. What you can get in Hana is a nice lunch.

Lindbergh Grave

The famed aviator, Charles Lindbergh had a home in Kipahulu with his wife Anne. Their graves are about 12 miles beyond Hana off the Pi’ilani Highway. They are buried in a small cemetery on the slopes of Haleakala next to the church where his funeral was held in 1974.

Pools of ‘Ohe’o

Also known as the Seven Sacred Pools, this is a series of waterfalls cascading into small pools on the eastern side of the island, in Kipahulu, which is past the city of Hana. A tour guide told me there was nothing sacred about them from the point of view of the native Hawaiians; that it was about the tourism. I have since found that the name was dreamed up by the owner of a Hana hotel for marketing purposes. You can swim in them and lots of people do but they can be dangerous. Some people have been swept out to sea and drowned. They also can harbor parasites that can lead to months of medical care. Better to photograph the waterfalls and pools and skip the swim.

Pi’ilani Highway

This is the road that your rental car contract states that taking it is a violation of your agreement and you will be responsible for damage and any other costs incurred – which could include a very expensive tow should you get stuck. This is because there is about a 15-20 mile stretch where the road is dirt and a bit rugged. I drove it slowly and did not have any problem. If you venture off-road always drive very slowly. The SUV commercials that you see on TV where the vehicle is barreling along in a cloud of dust is strictly fantasy. No one drives off-road like that!

If you are considering this drive make sure to try hard to get up-to-date information on the state of the road. I drove it in 1999 and conditions can change. It is also worth noting that currently rental vehicles are satellite tracked. What that means is that, if you take this road and bring back a damaged vehicle, they will get the satellite track and good luck telling them that it happened in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

That being said, I thought driving from Hana back to the western part of the island via the Pi’ilani Highway was much more interesting than taking the Hana Highway back from Hana. Without the 620 hairpin curves it also was much easier on the stomach. The road takes you along the coastline with the Haleakala Volcano on your right and the Pacific Ocean on your left. There is mostly the stark volcanic scenery on the steep southern slope of the Haleakala volcano. But there were a few other places where you have the lush greenery of a tropical rainforest. I found it an extremely interesting drive. In the photo gallery there is an aerial photo that I took on a commercial flight that flew over Maui. If you look at the bottom of the photo you can see where the steep slopes of Haleakala volcano meet the sea. The road, which you can’t see in the photo, is right by the sea.

Haleakala National Park Photo Gallery

Picture of cinder cones at the top of Haleakala National Park

Other National Parks Within a Day’s Journey

If you are visiting Hawaii, especially if you are particularly interested in visiting National Parks, these next two are accessible from Hawaii.

Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park is on the Island of Hawaii which is known to Hawaiian’s as the Big Island. It is about a 40 minute flight from Maui to the Big Island’s airport in Hilo which is about 20 miles from the park.

National Park of American Samoa This park is not convenient to any National Park. It is about a 5-hour, 2,600 mile flight from Honolulu to the airport in Pago Pago. If you are one of those people who want to visit all of the National Parks, then this is the only viable way to get there from the U.S.
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Updated 02/11/23 7:04 PM

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