Haleakala, a massive shield volcano that rises 10,023 feet above Maui’s coastal areas, is an enormously popular and easily accessible visitor destination. It has become almost a ritual, in fact, for visitors to rise before dawn and trek to the mountaintop to watch the sun come up.
Standing at the summit in the chilly darkness that precedes the dawn, you can almost make out the anxious figure of Hawaiian demigod Maui. Legend goes that Maui traveled to the sun’s resting place in the crater to wait, just as visitors do, for the sun to rise – but in his case, he was waiting to lasso the sun and slow its progress over the islands because his mother, Hina, complained that her tapa cloth would not dry properly. According to Hawaiian mythology, Maui’s lasso hit its target, It was only after the great yellow orb promised to travel more slowly through the sky did he release it.
Haleakala has been inactive since 1790 when two minor flows occurred on the southwest rift zone near La Perouse Bay. The great basin below the summit, commonly called a crater, is 3,000 feet deep, 7.5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. The basin is actually an “erosional depression” where water, wind and possibly glaciers cut into the mountain. Later, new lava flows partially filled the basin, leaving cinder cones to mark their eruptions. Pu‘u o Maui, the tallest cinder cone, reaches 500 feet from the basin floor.
The slumbering volcano—called “Houseof the Sun” by early Hawaiians—is the centerpiece of a 30,058-acre park that extends from Haleakala’s summit to Kipahulu Valley on the Hana coast. A place of legends and intriguing biological diversity, the park attracts more than 1 million visitors a year.
The park is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and offers plenty of alternatives to a sunrise vigil in a well-populated crowd.
Commercial downhill biking tours, which originate just outside the park entrance, have become a popular endeavor for skilled adventurers. The 38-mile ride down the volcano follows a scenic, twisting, two-lane highway. Riders are transported by van to the park entrance and escorted down the volcano. Non-commercial bicycle riders are allowed in the park as long as they avoid hiking paths and stick to the narrow, winding mountain road that carries vehicles throughout the park. Hiking, camping, horseback riding and guided nature tours also are popular.
A phone call to the National Weather Service (866-944-5025) for Maui’s weather forecast may help better your experience. A taped message will give you information on sunrise and sunset times and viewing conditions at the summit. Temperatures at the summit typically range from 32 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and occasionally dip below zero.
No food or gas is available in the park and there is a $10 entrance fee that is valid for three days. The drive, if made on paved roads from the island’s coastal areas, will take about two hours.
