After making the last of our bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches for breakfast in our campervan, we headed out of our campsite and back on the road…this time away from Hana. Before heading out of our campsite, we wanted to have the black sand beach all to ourselves without the crowds, and it was absolutely stunning! We even explored the lava tube that can be found right on the beach.
Driving in and out of Waiʻānapanapa State Park, you’ll see locals with fruit stands right in front of their homes, and they were each so unique.
We wanted to stop at a few spots that we missed on our way into Hana. Driving away from Hana gave us different views as a driver/passenger. As a passenger driving away from Hana, you find yourself right on the edge of the road…and in a campervan it’s quite the view! It’s no wonder why this road is so famous and visited by people all around the world.
We took a quick detour to try our luck with Aunty Sandy’s Banana Bread…again. On our way into Hana we stopped here but it was already closed. We’ve heard great things about this banana bread, so this time we arrived bright and early…right before they opened at 8:30am. This time the storefront was blocked off with caution tape and it was clear that it was closed. We were pretty disappointed and felt defeated, but we remember seeing banana bread at the Halfway to Hana storefront, so we decided to backtrack a few minutes for some delicious banana bread.
I guess you could say it was a craving that had to be attained. After this quick stop, we got back on the road to make a stop at Ke’anae Arboretum to explore some local flora…specifically the beautiful rainbow Eucalyptus trees!
The road in and out of Hana is definitely worth taking your time on because there is so much to see from both sides of the road. It’s imperative to watch out for other drivers and yield on single lane roads to prevent accidents. Take your time on it, respect other drivers and don’t forget to let the locals pass you! It’s a small sign of respect that goes a long way.
Before we knew it, we were off the winding road and back in the small town of Paia…time really does fly when you’re having fun! Now we begin a new adventure on a different winding road…the road up to the Summit District of Haleakalā National Park (also known as the East Maui Volcano).
Before we began this trek, we stopped in the town of Pukalani to have brunch at Freshies. We ordered French toast with local fresh fruit, biscuits and gravy, and a glass of freshly squeezed POG (passionfruit, orange, and guava) juice.
After brunch we stopped at a local grocery store called Pukalani Superette to grab some more water and pre-made hot meals for dinner at our next campsite on the volcano…needless to say, there aren’t any food options on a volcano. We ended up getting some fried rice with spam, and upcountry fried chicken with rice that we plan on reheating for dinner up at the summit.
After we got everything we needed…gas included…we began our drive up to the summit. Don’t forget to head up to the summit with a full tank of gas (or at least near full). We found that staying in 2nd and 3rd gears was almost necessary to drive up, and allowed our breaks to cool off on the way down…remember you’re driving from sea-level to 10,000+ feet above sea-level. We passed the Haleakalā National Park sign and new we were about to begin our summit. There were markers on the side of the road every 1,000 feet to indicate the elevation gain.
The road to the summit became windy, and gave us spectacular views of the towns and coastlines below us. There were even cows walking across the road at one point!
Once we got to about 7,000 feet of elevation, we reached the national park entrance. We presented our campsite reservation information and he handed us our camp pass and sunrise ticket! Haleakalā is known for its sunrise, and so to limit capacity, visitors must make advanced reservations to see the sunrise at the summit. Since we made reservations to camp at Hosmer Grove Campground, we automatically had a sunrise summit entrance! If you plan on camping at Hosmer Grove, we highly recommend booking well in advance because they only have 6 sites available…and though the cost is only $5, we were pretty lucky to reserve a site because they get booked pretty quickly!
We passed our campsite, which sits around 7,000 feet above sea level (just past the park entrance), and continued driving up to the summit and visitor center. There are a lot of different trails on this dormant volcano, but we decided to head to the summit. We soon learned that there are two main areas above the 9,000ft mark, the Haleakalā Visitor Center (also known as the House of the Sun) and the true summit. The visitor center sits at 9,740 feet above sea level, has some amazing views of the crater, and also great shorter trails right off the parking lot. The summit sits at 10,023 feet above sea level and has some observatory points of the towns below and Pacific Ocean, but no designated trails.
As we expected (due to the afternoon warming of the atmosphere), the crater was almost entirely covered by clouds and we didn’t really get to see inside the crater. Nevertheless, we hiked Pā Ka’oao to check out the crater viewpoint. Since we were so high up in elevation, we were actually ABOVE the clouds, but it was important for us to take our time on the hike. Altitude sickness is quite common, especially with such a quick and drastic change in elevation. Keeshia was already starting to feel a little woozy, so we made sure to stay hydrated and take our time.
We tried to wait it out to see if they would pass, but there was just too much cloud coverage. We made our way back down the trail headed up the road to the summit, but still no luck. On our way back down to our van, we ran into a Chukar partridge that isn’t native to the Hawaiian Island, but was introduced to the island as a game bird. They seem to have adapted well to the mountain’s cold and dry summit!
It was about 3pm by now, so we decided to relax in our campervan at the summit and wait until sunset. Not only is Haleakalā a good place to watch a sunrise, but it’s also popular for its sunsets (sunsets might be even more popular than sunrises because advanced reservations are not required). We heard the summit parking lot gets pretty packed around sunset time so we didn’t want to drive back down to our campsite to drive back up and find there would be no parking left. Another example of the perks of having a campervan…we can just hang out in the car and still be comfortable!
When 5pm came around, we heated up our fried chicken dinner that we got at the grocery store earlier, and began to see the crowds arriving at the summit to set up and wait for the sunset.
When we finished our dinner, we quickly gathered our camp chairs, blankets (because it is VERY cold up at the summit), camera gear and a flashlight (for when the sun goes down) and set up at one of the few unobstructed spots left at the summit rim. We waited about an hour for the sunset and as the time got closer…more and more people began to arrive.
The sun went down around 6:50pm, but the hour before and after was truly a magical experience. We’ve seen many sunsets around the world, but this was definitely the first sunset that we saw above the clouds!
When the sun went below the clouds, the crowd began to disperse…but we know the sun wasn’t quite finished setting, so we stuck around a bit longer to really see the colors of the sky change.
After the sun fully set, the temperature dropped almost immediately. It was super cold, but we decided to stick around for the stargazing…this was really a once in a lifetime experience.
We were one of the last ones to pack up and head back to our car…probably because we had a short 20-minute drive back to Hosmer Grove Campground (while others had at least a 2-hour drive down the entire volcano). The drive down was a bit unnerving as the only light source were headlights and the distant towns 10,000 feet below. Once we got back to our campsite, we went to bed almost immediately. We’ll be waking up in just a few hours so that we can drive back up to the summit to watch the sunrise…so stay posted!