I'm not sure if other airlines name their fleet, but Hawaiian Airlines does. This is something I've noticed over the years as I've visited home. As you board the plane, its Hawaiian name is painted in purple to the left of the door. The one carrying us to Maui was christened "Kioea".I think this is a really sweet touch which makes the flight more bearable somehow, to be able to have a name to pray to when the turbulence hits. "Please, Kioea, keep your wings up!!!" Instead of, "Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" As I entered the cabin, I suddenly got the idea to start keeping track of the plane names to see if I'd ever hop on the same one in the future. Kind of like how people write their names on dollar bills with the hope that their spent cash would someday be returned to them after having been stuffed into numerous wallets, vending machines, and exchanged through countless hands.
Liane and I camped five nights out of the eight we had planned on Maui. The remaining three nights were spent at my mom's house Up Country. Mom actually moved from her cramped studio apartment into a spacious and furnished two-bedroom deal while we were there, how's that for accommodating?! Her new place is about 2500' higher at 3500' elevation on the western slope of massive Haleakala. Its 10,023 foot summit can be seen from her living room window, as well as a far-reaching glimpse of South Maui and Kaho'olawe island beyond. Along with these incredible views comes the brisk temperatures of living that high up the mountain. We were freezing! I'm sure it got down to the 40's at night.
Down at sea-level it's always warm. Warm enough that taking a cold outdoor shower at dusk can be summed up as, "not bad." Olowalu Campground sits at the base of deeply carved gulches in the West Maui Mountains and only about fifty yards from the calm shoreline. Most of the sites are shaded by tall, crooked keawe trees whose fallen branches litter the hot, dry dusty paths with thorny landmines. Even with careful navigation it's hard to avoid the 1/2+ inch thorns that easily drive right through any hardy slipper and you're left staggering on one foot trying to pick out the pesky heel stabbers. Sometimes the whole branch gets tacked on to the bottom of your slipper! Our tent neighbors were a delightful family of five from Vancouver, BC. Impressive parenting was made evident when the three kids acquired a nasty looking cupcake frosted with bright St. Patty's Day colored radioactive-looking goop from another camper down the way. Instead of eating the free sugar snack with typical childlike abandon, the siblings carefully brought it back to camp as a specimen of "bad" food. One of the girls proclaimed something like, "It probably contains hydrogenated oil and white flour which isn't good for me." They instead found more creative use for the green frosting as finger paint.
Down at sea-level it's always warm. Warm enough that taking a cold outdoor shower at dusk can be summed up as, "not bad." Olowalu Campground sits at the base of deeply carved gulches in the West Maui Mountains and only about fifty yards from the calm shoreline. Most of the sites are shaded by tall, crooked keawe trees whose fallen branches litter the hot, dry dusty paths with thorny landmines. Even with careful navigation it's hard to avoid the 1/2+ inch thorns that easily drive right through any hardy slipper and you're left staggering on one foot trying to pick out the pesky heel stabbers. Sometimes the whole branch gets tacked on to the bottom of your slipper! Our tent neighbors were a delightful family of five from Vancouver, BC. Impressive parenting was made evident when the three kids acquired a nasty looking cupcake frosted with bright St. Patty's Day colored radioactive-looking goop from another camper down the way. Instead of eating the free sugar snack with typical childlike abandon, the siblings carefully brought it back to camp as a specimen of "bad" food. One of the girls proclaimed something like, "It probably contains hydrogenated oil and white flour which isn't good for me." They instead found more creative use for the green frosting as finger paint.
Snorkeling is kind of like birding except that while birding, you're having to crane your neck up at the sky and trees peering through binos for our feathered friends, and when snorkeling, you're the one gliding above looking down at the tops of fish and reef through a mask plastered to your face. But searching for and identifying different species is the name of both games. Some fish even have bird name associations, like the Black-sided Hawkfish that perches stoically on finger coral, the darting blue-green Bird Wrasse whose long snout indeed resembles a beak, and the psychedelic-colored Uhu, or Parrot Fish, that noisily scrapes algae off coral with its huge "buckteeth." Unlike birding, however, it can be a bit of a challenge calling out fish names underwater with a snorkel jammed in your mouth! All you can do is point vigorously and exclaim, "HAWW-ISSHH!" "ERRD-ASSS!" "OOH-HOO!", and hope that your snorkeling buddy can share in your discovery. And those are relatively easy names to decipher, but what happens when you come upon a bright yellow nauwiliwilinukunuku oi oi? I suppose that snorkeling can also be akin to mammal-ling, since there are Goat Fish, Squirrel Fish, and Unicorn Fish! One of my favorite fishes is the Dragon Wrasse, which is a juvenile Rockmover Wrasse. It's reddish-brown with white spots and a star pattern radiating from its eye. Its fins have long leafy extensions that camouflage it as seaweed and the fish even swims near the seafloor in a swaying and flipping motion mimicking the plant. Absolutely adorable!
November through March is humpback whale season in Hawaii. These beautiful beasts come here to breed and give birth in the warm shallow waters during winter, and West Maui is one of the best places to spot them. You can often see them way out on the horizon, blowing and splashing, a fin here, a fluke there, and if you're lucky you can see one breach the surface in all its 44-ton and gravity-defying splendor! Maybe even more remarkable is that if you dive down into the water near the shore you can HEAR the whales singing! We discovered this while snorkeling on the afternoon of our seventh anniversary at Kahekili Beach. The whale song is eerie yet wonderful with verses of long low moans and vamps of high-pitched squeals. We kept diving down just to listen to their magical melodies for as long as we could hold our breath.
A southern swell came in over the weekend which rendered most beaches useless in terms of snorkeling visibility. Alternatively, Po'olenalena Beach in South Maui offered up some nice pipelines to play in... and get pounded on! We waded in nearby a handful of kids bobbing in and out of the waves, enjoying the dynamic rise and fall of wet weightlessness. Plunging through oncoming waves and resurfacing out behind their crests is not only deliciously addicting to the senses, but it also saves you from being tumbled in its wash cycle and scraped along the sandy bottom. But sometimes it doesn't always work that way. We somehow managed to enter the ocean right before the biggest set rolled in because suddenly the little 4-footers we were frolicking in grew into 8-10-footers and I found myself completely unprepared (and unable) to bore through a rapidly advancing thick wall of water! I tried to duck under but my little limbs couldn't propel me through to the other side and I got pummeled and knocked about like a heavy duty load of beach towels, only when the spin cycle finally ended for me, I was still thoroughly covered in sand.
For a stunning change of scenery we headed up the mountain to hike in Haleakala's crater, a landscape more suited perhaps to a travel blog entitled "Martian Vacation" rather than "Maui Vacation." Haleakala's original summit was probably about 3000' taller than it is today which would put it in the slightly higher "massive" category reserved for its sister island peaks Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, both towering above 13,600'. But hundreds of thousands of years of erosion from streams in the Keanae and Kaupo valleys eventually gouged out the large depression at the summit and the volcano's east rift zone awakened once again to violently erupt an impressive lineup of cinder cones along the crater floor. The explosions left a mess of scattered lava bombs sprinkled over the slopes of black, brown, gray, and bright red oxidized cinders. Rivers of lava (whose cooled surfaces always remind me of the broken top of a pan of brownies) wound around the cones' bases and flowed down the large valleys creating the flattened floors of the Ko'olau and Kaupo Gaps.
The endangered Silversword plant somehow ekes out a living in this barren windswept alpine region. Their blade-like leaves are arranged like a spiky ball and are covered with tiny silver hairs which make them gleam from the cindery slopes. We hiked down Sliding Sands Trail several miles to the first cinder cone Ka Lu'u o ka O'o and peered into its steep red pit. It was exhilarating to walk the lip of the pit and imagine the fury that Pele once belched forth here!
Wet and cold Hosmer Grove at 7000' was our home for the night. The cloud forest supports native Hawaiian birds, like the bright red i'iwi whom I've heard so much about when I was growing up. Its chance of survival always sounded so grim that I regarded it as a mythical creature I would probably never see in my lifetime. So when we saw almost twenty of them near camp (some right in the parking lot!!) I entered seventh ornithological heaven! Along with its thick curved beak, i'iwi's other distinct characteristic is the loud fluttering sound of its wings. In the early morning we could hear them circling our tent!
It had rained quite a bit and we heard there were flash flood warnings and landslide hazards on the long and winding Hana Highway, our next destination. The locals in town tried to steer us away from the rainy east side but we zoomed out there anyway. Turned out that not a single drop of rain fell that night and we had the entire Waianapanapa campground to ourselves! What? This place was an overflowing village of tents the last time we visited Maui, but that night it was just us, some mongoose, a feral cat, and all the spirits that lay in the cemetery across the lawn. Waianapanapa is known for its black sand beach and rugged coastline where wicked waves pound the basalt cliffs into sea caves, stacks, and arches, and offer up mesmerizing blue stews of frothy finesse.
The tiny town of Hana sits in front of Ka'uiki Head, a 386' cinder cone at the easternmost edge of the island. A narrow sketchy trail leads you around to the back side of the cone to reveal Red Sand Beach. WOW. Angry wave action breached the cone's east slope and scooped out a sweet secluded cove protected by a natural lava rock breakwater (an intrusive igneous dike, in case you were dying to know).
One of our favorite hikes on the island is Pipiwai Trail in the Kipahulu Valley that leads you to two towering waterfalls via the hollow stalked hallways of a bamboo forest. Liane took a dip in Infinity Pool at the top of 200' Makahiku Falls. It's pretty dang amazing to sit in the pool, peer down the waterfall, and follow the stream's course out to the ocean in front of you. There must have been some tragic incident here since they've erected numerous NO JUMPING and FATAL DROP signs at every ledge along the trail.
At the sweaty top we were rewarded with the cooling mist of 400' Waimoku Falls, and on the way back down through the bamboo Liane noticed a strange red object off-trail on the decaying leafy ground. Was it trash? Was it a flower? Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be some kind of mushroom - a monster mushroom with a mud-covered mouth and tentacles! Seriously, we had never seen anything like it before and it seemed so out of place. As we continued descending the trail our eyes scanned the bamboo base for more of the freaky fungi and surprisingly we hunted down four more of its tribe. Later research pinned it down as the Starfish Fungus, and the mouth of "mud" was its spore mass.
It is rumored that the road past Kipahulu that skirts Haleakala's south face and reconnects to the Kula highway is unpaved and impassable in a regular car but ours did fine. It actually is paved most of the way and alternates with stretches of hard-packed dirt pocked with numerous but insignificant potholes. The landscape is dramatic and raw and if it's clear you can see the Big Island across the Alenuihaha Channel, as well as receive its radio stations! (We were rocking out to LAVA 105.3!) Deep gulches scar the slopes and the gargantuan Kaupo Gap looms above at 8000'. Not much else out here except for the Kaupo Store which serves as a place to stop for a refreshing popsicle, look at their rusting collection of vintage cameras and radios, or talk story with the shop keeper. Rectangular stone-walled ruins of heiau, or temples, can be seen along the coast here, a testament that this barren span of land wasn't always devoid of community.
The road eventually winds up back in civilization in Up Country, full circle to Mom's house. Mom would have accompanied us on some of these adventures if it weren't for her recent knee surgery. I look forward to next time!
The plane that flew us from Maui to Oahu was named "Elepaio." A bird! I suddenly made the connection that Hawaiian Airlines named their fleet after native Hawaiian birds - awesome! I was even more excited now to keep track of which wings flew me where and when. "Akeke" was the plane that carried us 2000 miles back across the Pacific to Portland.
A couple hundred miles to the east I could see the dark peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa emerging above the white cumulus clouds like mighty backs of humpback whales slicing through white-capped waves. Though unlike the magnificent migrating mammals who will eventually move on, my beloved mountainous homeland islands will remain anchored in the center of the Pacific awaiting my return.
For full photo album click here
November through March is humpback whale season in Hawaii. These beautiful beasts come here to breed and give birth in the warm shallow waters during winter, and West Maui is one of the best places to spot them. You can often see them way out on the horizon, blowing and splashing, a fin here, a fluke there, and if you're lucky you can see one breach the surface in all its 44-ton and gravity-defying splendor! Maybe even more remarkable is that if you dive down into the water near the shore you can HEAR the whales singing! We discovered this while snorkeling on the afternoon of our seventh anniversary at Kahekili Beach. The whale song is eerie yet wonderful with verses of long low moans and vamps of high-pitched squeals. We kept diving down just to listen to their magical melodies for as long as we could hold our breath.A southern swell came in over the weekend which rendered most beaches useless in terms of snorkeling visibility. Alternatively, Po'olenalena Beach in South Maui offered up some nice pipelines to play in... and get pounded on! We waded in nearby a handful of kids bobbing in and out of the waves, enjoying the dynamic rise and fall of wet weightlessness. Plunging through oncoming waves and resurfacing out behind their crests is not only deliciously addicting to the senses, but it also saves you from being tumbled in its wash cycle and scraped along the sandy bottom. But sometimes it doesn't always work that way. We somehow managed to enter the ocean right before the biggest set rolled in because suddenly the little 4-footers we were frolicking in grew into 8-10-footers and I found myself completely unprepared (and unable) to bore through a rapidly advancing thick wall of water! I tried to duck under but my little limbs couldn't propel me through to the other side and I got pummeled and knocked about like a heavy duty load of beach towels, only when the spin cycle finally ended for me, I was still thoroughly covered in sand.
For a stunning change of scenery we headed up the mountain to hike in Haleakala's crater, a landscape more suited perhaps to a travel blog entitled "Martian Vacation" rather than "Maui Vacation." Haleakala's original summit was probably about 3000' taller than it is today which would put it in the slightly higher "massive" category reserved for its sister island peaks Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, both towering above 13,600'. But hundreds of thousands of years of erosion from streams in the Keanae and Kaupo valleys eventually gouged out the large depression at the summit and the volcano's east rift zone awakened once again to violently erupt an impressive lineup of cinder cones along the crater floor. The explosions left a mess of scattered lava bombs sprinkled over the slopes of black, brown, gray, and bright red oxidized cinders. Rivers of lava (whose cooled surfaces always remind me of the broken top of a pan of brownies) wound around the cones' bases and flowed down the large valleys creating the flattened floors of the Ko'olau and Kaupo Gaps.
The endangered Silversword plant somehow ekes out a living in this barren windswept alpine region. Their blade-like leaves are arranged like a spiky ball and are covered with tiny silver hairs which make them gleam from the cindery slopes. We hiked down Sliding Sands Trail several miles to the first cinder cone Ka Lu'u o ka O'o and peered into its steep red pit. It was exhilarating to walk the lip of the pit and imagine the fury that Pele once belched forth here!
Wet and cold Hosmer Grove at 7000' was our home for the night. The cloud forest supports native Hawaiian birds, like the bright red i'iwi whom I've heard so much about when I was growing up. Its chance of survival always sounded so grim that I regarded it as a mythical creature I would probably never see in my lifetime. So when we saw almost twenty of them near camp (some right in the parking lot!!) I entered seventh ornithological heaven! Along with its thick curved beak, i'iwi's other distinct characteristic is the loud fluttering sound of its wings. In the early morning we could hear them circling our tent!
It had rained quite a bit and we heard there were flash flood warnings and landslide hazards on the long and winding Hana Highway, our next destination. The locals in town tried to steer us away from the rainy east side but we zoomed out there anyway. Turned out that not a single drop of rain fell that night and we had the entire Waianapanapa campground to ourselves! What? This place was an overflowing village of tents the last time we visited Maui, but that night it was just us, some mongoose, a feral cat, and all the spirits that lay in the cemetery across the lawn. Waianapanapa is known for its black sand beach and rugged coastline where wicked waves pound the basalt cliffs into sea caves, stacks, and arches, and offer up mesmerizing blue stews of frothy finesse.
The tiny town of Hana sits in front of Ka'uiki Head, a 386' cinder cone at the easternmost edge of the island. A narrow sketchy trail leads you around to the back side of the cone to reveal Red Sand Beach. WOW. Angry wave action breached the cone's east slope and scooped out a sweet secluded cove protected by a natural lava rock breakwater (an intrusive igneous dike, in case you were dying to know).
One of our favorite hikes on the island is Pipiwai Trail in the Kipahulu Valley that leads you to two towering waterfalls via the hollow stalked hallways of a bamboo forest. Liane took a dip in Infinity Pool at the top of 200' Makahiku Falls. It's pretty dang amazing to sit in the pool, peer down the waterfall, and follow the stream's course out to the ocean in front of you. There must have been some tragic incident here since they've erected numerous NO JUMPING and FATAL DROP signs at every ledge along the trail.
At the sweaty top we were rewarded with the cooling mist of 400' Waimoku Falls, and on the way back down through the bamboo Liane noticed a strange red object off-trail on the decaying leafy ground. Was it trash? Was it a flower? Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be some kind of mushroom - a monster mushroom with a mud-covered mouth and tentacles! Seriously, we had never seen anything like it before and it seemed so out of place. As we continued descending the trail our eyes scanned the bamboo base for more of the freaky fungi and surprisingly we hunted down four more of its tribe. Later research pinned it down as the Starfish Fungus, and the mouth of "mud" was its spore mass.
It is rumored that the road past Kipahulu that skirts Haleakala's south face and reconnects to the Kula highway is unpaved and impassable in a regular car but ours did fine. It actually is paved most of the way and alternates with stretches of hard-packed dirt pocked with numerous but insignificant potholes. The landscape is dramatic and raw and if it's clear you can see the Big Island across the Alenuihaha Channel, as well as receive its radio stations! (We were rocking out to LAVA 105.3!) Deep gulches scar the slopes and the gargantuan Kaupo Gap looms above at 8000'. Not much else out here except for the Kaupo Store which serves as a place to stop for a refreshing popsicle, look at their rusting collection of vintage cameras and radios, or talk story with the shop keeper. Rectangular stone-walled ruins of heiau, or temples, can be seen along the coast here, a testament that this barren span of land wasn't always devoid of community.
The road eventually winds up back in civilization in Up Country, full circle to Mom's house. Mom would have accompanied us on some of these adventures if it weren't for her recent knee surgery. I look forward to next time!
The plane that flew us from Maui to Oahu was named "Elepaio." A bird! I suddenly made the connection that Hawaiian Airlines named their fleet after native Hawaiian birds - awesome! I was even more excited now to keep track of which wings flew me where and when. "Akeke" was the plane that carried us 2000 miles back across the Pacific to Portland.
A couple hundred miles to the east I could see the dark peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa emerging above the white cumulus clouds like mighty backs of humpback whales slicing through white-capped waves. Though unlike the magnificent migrating mammals who will eventually move on, my beloved mountainous homeland islands will remain anchored in the center of the Pacific awaiting my return.
For full photo album click here
