Along with the Road to Hana, another big "must-do" was watching the sunrise at the top of the Haleakala volcano. Sunrise was around 6am and in order to get ready, make the drive and get a spot, we had to get up at 2am!
Our alarm went off at 2am and I almost told Jim "No way, forget it... there's no way I'm really getting up at 2am." But, I got up and got ready. I'd researched the sunrise at Haleakala and the biggest thing was to BUNDLE UP. My 'Maui Revealed' book said to "wear every stitch of clothing you brought from the mainland". One of our suitcases pretty much was packed with winter clothes just for the Haleakala sunrise. I packed for tropical 90-degree weather, but then to also pack gloves, scarves, thermal long-johns and coats was really weird.
For a little "fun fact", Maui is made up of two volcanoes. The larger one is Haleakala (which means house of the sun) and is 10,023 feet, and the smaller one is Halemahina (which means house of the moon) and is only 5,788 feet. Over time, erosion has created the isthmus between the two volcanoes.
We started our drive up to the top. It took us about two hours to drive to the summit from our hotel. It's about twenty miles from the base to the summit, with constant switchbacks. The road up to the top was nice and paved, but remember, on the side of a huge mountain, so as the road winds up, there's always one side of the road next to a steep side of the mountain. Some parts had a guardrail, while most of the way up just has a 6" asphalt curb. It was really dark as we were driving up and not a lot of other cars around. We could see the lights from the towns at sea level and they kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller as we were driving up. It was pretty unnerving to be driving in pitch black, watching the towns get really small beneath you, and then also to know there's a steep steep hill on one side of the car.
As we were driving up, the stars were amazing. I don't think I've ever seen as many stars during that car ride as I have in my entire life. I told Jim "Look... the stars are like they're so close...". That's when Jim's fear of heights really kicked in. He said the steep road, darkness, seeing the lights get so small below us, and having the stars right above us was too much. We pulled over and switched so I could drive the rest of the way.
The weather at the top varies about 40-60 degrees, so it's not uncommon for it to be in the 30's at night. Knowing this, when I saw the "caution: road may be icy" sign, I freaked out. This is my worst fear- driving on ice UP a 10,023 volcano. I pushed through my fear and kept on driving. We got to the first visitors center, got out and looked around. There were maybe another dozen cars there at that time. We then realized there was ANOTHER visitors center a little further, so we got back in the car and kept on driving. We got the summit- 10,023 feet above sea level! We got out and made our way to the observation deck. There were steep steps up to it, and a "Walk slow at this elevation" sign. The air is so much thinner and normal things like walking up stairs can make you short of breath. Jim and I neither one really noticed it much, although after a short hike, we felt really really tired (maybe a combination of thin air and also getting up at 2 in the morning).
It was about 5am and by this time, I REALLY had to go to the bathroom. I knew I couldn't make it until sunrise, and the bathroom was at the visitor center below us that we just left. By this time, the upper visitor center's parking lot had filled up (probably a hundred cars and buses), except for about two parking spots. I drove back down to the visitors center, but they had locked the gate right before. Apparently, once the parking lot at the top fills, they lock the gate. We were ALREADY at the top parking lot, so we were locked IN, not out! I was so glad- I would have been so bummed to have gotten up at 2am, made that drive, and then not be able to get to the top observation deck. We parked right by the gate, and still were able to walk to the bathrooms. This visitors center was PACKED. After a wait in line for the bathrooms, we walked back to the car and drove back to the top visitors center. There was ONE SPOT left when we got back, so we really were so lucky.
We stood in the outside part of the observation deck, but to my dismay, we got second row. People with tripods had already claimed the front row (I was jealous). We were still able to get a decent spot and I was able to set up my tripod too.
Here's Jim, he's wearing jeans, thick sweatpants over his jeans, two pair of socks, a t-shirt, a long-sleeve t-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, a jacket, a hat, and gloves. Here I am- I was wearing thermal long-johns, jeans, two pair of socks, a t-shirt, and long-sleeve undershirt, a hooded sweatshirt, a pullover jacket, a scarf, a hat and two pair of gloves. Wearing all of this, we were still chilly, but OK to stand outside and wait for the sun to come up.


We look a little sleepy, huh? Oh, I thought this was annoying... while we were waiting outside, there was a couple right beside us with a little girl- maybe 18 months old or two years old. She was crying the entire time we were standing there. I look, and she doesn't have gloves on, or a hat and her little pants were hiked up, so her legs were exposed. Ummm... do you wonder why she's crying? Put the girl in the car! Fools! They kept trying to cease her crying by pointing out where the the sun was coming up. Like a two-year old gives a rat's ass about seeing a sunrise at 10,000 feet.
The sun was starting to come up. The sunrise at the summit is really cool, because we're ABOVE the clouds.





This is the view looking towards Halemahina. Off to the upper left, you can see the island of Lana'i, and then off the upper right, you can see the island of Molokai. It's kinda hard to see, but it was really cool how far we could see.

This is looking down towards the first visitors center (where the bathrooms are).
This is the observation deck where we watched the sunrise...


Also at the top of Haleakala, is Science City. We saw it from our helicopter tour, but now we were right beside it. It was really cool to see Science City from two perspectives during our trip. This was the picture of Science City from our helicopter tour...

And then this is Science City from the summit...


Science City is the fourth-best viewing spot on the planet, due to the height above sea level and also the clear atmospheric conditions. I kept singing "Take me up to the Science City, where the air is thin and the wind is chilly..." to the tune of Guns-N-Roses' "Paradise City". Jim thought it was cute the first seven times I sang it.
The little domes don't look that big, but then a white van was driving in and then I realized how big these domes were...

I imagined the white van was full of scientists in white coats and glasses driving into work to talk to Nasa.
Also at the top of Haleakala, is the Silversword. It grows here and nowhere else on the planet. It's an endangered species.




We drove back down to the lower visitors center. This is the view looking up at where we were (at the summit). You can see the observation deck (albeit very small, in the upper left corner) where we watched the sunrise...



If you click on the picture above and make it bigger, you can see where we were at the summit, but then also where we were at the Kipahula National Park where we ended on our Road to Hana.

It was about 7:30am and it had "warmed" up to about 40 or 45 degrees. That's when I spot these fools...

They were out of their car about 1.2 minutes. Idiots!
We then went on the Sliding Sands hiking trail. It's about 4 miles down into the crater. I didn't plan on us going very far, just hiking until we got tired. With getting up at 2am, I didn't want to hike in three miles and then have to hike back up three miles.

There was only a couple other people coming and going while we were on the trail, so it felt like we had it all to ourselves. It was AMAZING. The views were like something I've never seen before.







A guy came along on the trail and I asked him to take our picture. He didn't seem all too happy to take it, so I didn't want to press my luck to have him take a second one with the flash. Too bad this picture came out dark.


In this next picture, you can see a group of hikers making their way back up the trail (they're really tiny)...

By this time, we had to start shedding some of our layers.



We then walked back to the car and walked around the visitors center for a bit (and to buy some souvenirs, of course!).
We then started our trek down Haleakala. Jim didn't want to chance it driving, so I drove all the way back down. I put the car in a lower gear and everything was fine. Since we walked around and hiked a little, we missed the big rush of cars back down the mountain right after sunrise.

I stopped off a couple of times to take in the views.


I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the park sign on the way up...




It was about 10:30am when we got back down to the base of Haleakala. I'll continue our Tuesday adventures in the next post(s).