Overview:  We had a wonderful week celebrating Nicole and Chad's beautiful wedding here on Maui.  Now sadly it is our last night and we have a reservation to stay in a cabin in the crater.  We dropped Beth off at the airport and made the drive from sea level up to the top at 10,000 ft.  The crater is quite the landscape with stark contrasts to the rainforest of the north side of the park.

Route:  We dropped our car off at the Halemauu trailhead and hitchhiked to the top of the crater.  The friendly couple who picked us happed happened to be from Novato!! Beginning at the top of the crater we headed down on the sliding sands trail to Kapalaoa Cabin.  From there it was another few miles to the Paliku Cabin where we would spend the night.  The following day we hiked out along the Halemauu Trail up out of the crater.

 The beginning of the sliding sands trail was awesome, the first 5 miles of the trail brought us down the steep slope to the bottom of the crater.

 As we descended we eventually entered a cloud and felt and interesting mix of warm Hawaii and the cool cloud mist.  Sam was having a hard time- a bit depressed that we left the beaches of Hawaii on our last day for what now looked like the moon.

We soon hit the halfway point of the day at about the Kapalaoa Cabin. As we continued there became more and more vegetation as we descended from the higher altitudes.  Going through the different eco zones reminded us much of Kilimanjaro.

 We then had some views over the ocean to the top of the big island of Hawaii.

 Our Paliku Cabin is nestled beneath a steep green cliff.  We left at 1:00 and arrived at 5:30. In the cabin is a gas stove and we enjoyed a chili dinner.  There is also a wood stove that heated the place quite well.

It was a 5:00 AM wakeup for the hike out and set a goal to make the 10 mile hike out by 10 AM.  We estimated quite well as I made it to the car just a few minutes before 10. We had a plane to catch at 3:00 pm and wanted plenty of time. 

Much of the morning we spent inside the crater in a cloud.  Passing cinder cones and plenty of other weird holes and features, I was waiting for the Mars rover to appear around the next bend.

  We could see the trail a ways off zigzagging up the side of the mountain cliffs.  Once out of the lava flow, it was a 1200 ft ascent up and out.

Extras

Movie - Maui 2007

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