Haleakala

Whenever I visit a National Park, one of my favorite things to do is to look at the license plates of the cars in the visitor center parking lots. Now, we have visited Haleakala National Park twice on this trip, and ALL the plates are from the same state. What?

We started the day with our cousins again, sharing the morning meal and going for a walk. We shared stories again, and even saw turtles near the shore. But Brian and Clare had a plane to catch as well as a mission – to go to Haleakala National Park again.

Another curvy road, like the one to Hana except steeper and with fewer one way bridges. This picture only shows the curves within the park – the part getting up to the park is even steeper!
We were greeted in the parking lot by a pair of chukar partridges, common on the volcano. So cute and SO fat! Is that all feathers to keep the birds warm? The name here is based on the sounds they make as they peck, peck, peck eating almost constantly (according to the ranger).
This was the best view of the ”crater” at the top of the volcano from our time there (lots of clouds and fog while we visited). It’s not a true volcanic crater because this one is formed from erosion rather than an explosive eruption. The first lavas arrived about 800,000 years ago with the bulk of the eruptions continuing until about 400,000 years ago; the most recent occurred in the 1700’s. The cinder cones in the background are beautiful.
Notice how pale the rocks are. This finally answered the question about the pale colored beach sands – they are natural sands derived from weathering and erosion of the volcano. Not certain why the sand was so fine grained on the beach we visited, but the colors of the grains match. Nice to have figured that one out!

Nice pictures of the primary characters in this blog, with another showing how high we got! While the temperatures down at the beaches were in the 80s, up here at the summit it was in the 40s with wind and occasional drizzle. Clare was glad she brought her hiking poles, because they were handy on the trails at the top. We were both glad for our jackets.

These silver sword plants are unique to Haleakala. They have been living here for hundreds of thousands of years, evolving to fit into the environment. The pictures don’t quite show the brilliant the metallic color of the leaves. These plants only bloom once in their lifetimes, and none of them were blooming when we were there. These plants were one of the main reasons for our visit to the summit of the volcano!

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