Maui Vacation

13-18 August 2001

After a great week on the Big Island at the PGG Planetary Volcanolgy Workshop, Jani and I had planned to take a vacation on Maui. One of the people that we had met at the workshop, Mike Wyatt from Univerity of TN, was also headed to Maui for a while, so he hung out with us for the first part of the week, and then stayed with his friend Patrick after that.

Jani had found us a picturesque beachfront condo in the town of Kihei on the western shore of what is known as "south Maui." This is a picture from our back porch at the Kihei Surfside looking out at the sea and the peak of north Maui in the distance. That first day on Maui, we walked about 2 minutes to the beach and did some swimming and snorkeling.
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The second day, Tuesday, we decided to make our attack of Haleakala. We woke up at 3am, and drove up to the summit to watch the sun rise over Haleakala valley. There was no one on the road, and we thought that we'd be alone up there, but when we got there, there were loads of tourists (probably ready for the Maui Downhill bike ride) there.
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It was really funny because as soon as the sun had come up, the tourists fled the scene, they were gone. We, however, were ready for our twelve mile hike (3500 feet down into the valley, 1500 feet back up) down through the cinder cones of the Haleakala valley. We started at the visitor center, hiked down the Sliding Sands trail, and then switched onto the Halemau'u trail and exited at the Halemau'u trailhead. So Jani drove our car down to the spot where our trail would exit the valley, and hitched back up to the visitor's center. The clouds kind of lapped up against the cinder cones in the valley from the north, like some kind of atmospheric surf. We got a little group picture, and headed down.
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Once we got a little way down the trail, we came across some of Haleakala's beautiful Silver Sword plants which apparently only grow in the park.
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Here's Jani and the trail that we hiked down. We started somewhere up there on that ridge.
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As you can tell, we were mostly alone in the valley. We ran into some people in the morning, and then again later in the afternoon (when we were relatively close to parking lots). It was great. Mike could unscrew the top of his walking stick to reveal a camera mounting screw. So we planted it in some cinders and set the timer.
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I don't remember what Mike was pointing to, but I apparently liked the view enough to snap another picture without his walking stick in the way.
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Near the end of the trail that snaked through the valley, we came to the Holua Cabin. There are a couple of cabins in the park that you can reserve. There wasn't anyone there, but we did see a flock of Nene (the Hawai'ian state bird) around the cabin.
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So we were almost at the switchbacks that would lead us out of Haleakala valley, and we headed towards them.
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We thought that we had a reasonable idea of how tall it would be, but then those clouds came in, and swathed the cliffside in gauze. So as we kept hiking through switchback city, we kept thinking that just around the next bend, the trail would straighten out and we'd be aimed for the parking lot, the car, and ultimately a shower. However, about an hour of switchbacks later, when the last photo was taken, we still weren't off the trail (but we were close). In the car ride back down to Kihei I thought I should have taken an "after" photo of us, but we were rather beat, and it wouldn't have been pretty.
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The next day was Jani's birthday, and so we slept in and lounged around the condo. Eventually, we pulled ourselves together and drove up to to the Embassy Suites resort in Lahaina where Mike's friend Patrick worked at the dive shop there. He took the three of us out on a little shore dive there. There was an algae bloom just trailing off, so there was limited visibility, but you could see just fine. Patrick had his underwater camera with him and took a bunch of pictures of us. The main attraction was the sea turtles that live in that area, and we must have run into five or six of them in the course of our dive. Hopefully Mike will send us copies, so I can scan them in and put them here.

That evening we went to the Drums of the Pacific Luau at the Hyatt resort. It was a really great time. Here are some shots of them uncovering the pig.
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We had seen a bunch of people taking their pictures, so I set the camera on the table on a timer. However, since there was no one standing there holding a camera, people kept walking between us and the camera, but we finally got it.
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I took some shots as the sun started to set, but I figured that I'd rather enjoy the performance than worry about getting good pictures of everything (which there was a lot of).
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After the Luau, we met back up with Patrick, his roommate, and another woman (whose name I now forget). We went to Maui Brews where there was a DJ for people to dance to, drinks to drink, and pool tables for Mike to get beaten at. Unfortunately, that was our last night with Mike. He was going to stay with his friend, and catch a flight to Oahu to get some samples from Scott. I don't know if he ever made that flight, but I do know that he spent an extra ten days on Maui having a great time.

The next day Jani and I headed off down the Hana Highway. We left mid morning and stopped at places along the way, taking it all in. We stopped and hiked the Waimakoi nature trail, and several of the waterfalls that the road winds between. Here too, I recall taking more pictures, but I guess I didn't.
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By mid-afternoon we had made it to Hana and our cute little cottage. Of course we were still pretty tired from the night before and so we took an afternoon nap, and I didn't get this picture of the cottage until the next morning.
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That morning we headed to Wainapanapa beach (which had black sand). It was pretty, but the surf was pretty rough, so no snorkeling for us.
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Before lunch we went to a red sand beach that was where a cinder cone had been eroded by the sea. I didn't take my camera (because I'm a moron), but you had to hike around the edge of the cone to get into the beach which was kind of near where the center of the cone would have been, and there was just a wide pie-shaped section of cone that had eroded into a nice little beach area. The little cove was protected, and so there were lots of cool fish, and the snorkeling there was great.

After lunch we headed to a different end of the Haleakala National Park to an area known as the Seven Sacred Pools, and did the hike along the Pipiwai trail to the main Waimoku falls at the top. We wandered down to the lower falls where everyone was hanging out first, and then headed up.
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Once you got to a certain elevation, you started hiking through this awesome bamboo forest. So the first picture was horribly underexposed, but the others were alright, including my artsy picture looking up towards the tree-tops. Which I then made cheesy by putting Jani and I into it.
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Our destination was the Waimoku falls at the top, and they were gorgeous.
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Our little cottage was very rustic, and had lots of fun wildlife. I didn't get any pictures of the mosquitoes in the bathroom, the mongoose in the yard, or the cool geckos that came out at night eating insects near our porch light. However, I did manage to catch this rather large and pretty spider in her web in the morning.
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Our last day on Maui saw us driving back from Hana, doing some shopping, and driving down to La Perouse Bay and the rubbly pahoehoe in this relatively recent flow. The last picture is of a little crab that I kept waiting to crawl out of his hiding place, but that's about as far as he got while I was there.
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All in all, our trip to Maui was a raging success, and I had a great time. I owe much of it to Jani because she did all of the trip planning and it was all great. Thank you, Jani.

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-Ross Beyer


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