Thursday- Mauna

  We moved our adventure to the large mountain on the island. Haleakala National Park. We started the day early and were a part of a small group guided tour by our friendly guide Keith. “Inn’t that wild?” is a phrase I’ll always connect with our Upcountry guide. Our hike was in Waikomoi Cloud Forest Preserve. We learned a lot about the history of Maui and trees during this 3 hour hike. About how 100 years ago, this guy named Hosmer decided that Hawaii would be a great place to try and build into a lumber island. He changed the landscape of the island. We were walking through a forest that you could find in many different places locally to you. Until we got to a small valley where they didn’t tear out the native plants to replace with the non-native. This small valley was one of the images I had of an island forest. This is what Hawaii used to be like. The photos we got do not do it justice. It was beautiful and otherworldly. The otherworldliness came from the trees as well as the constant mist we were walking in all morning. It was very impressive to spend some time in this tiny section of Maui that is akin to its younger self 100 years ago.

After our tour we continued up the mountain to see the summit. 10,000 feet up and we were above the clouds, overlooking a dormant volcano and  finding a little chick to try to reunite with its mom and siblings.

On our way back down, we traversed some treacherous local roads (locals zoom around corners with no line of sight) and found a cute little Mexican restaurant to eat at in a cute little town where all the stores close at 6pm. The day started off cold, walking in the clouds, then got hot above the clouds and ended just right.