Maui is shaped like a lopsided figure 8. It has two distinct mountain groups. The West Maui Mountains are smaller, with Puu Kukui reaching 5788 ft. in contrast, East Maui is dominated by Mt. Haleakala whose highest peak is 10,023 ft. These two mountains are joined in the middle by a broad flat portion of land between Kahului Bay in the north, and Maalaea Bay in the south. Each half of the island has its own separate windward and leeward sides.
For us, today marked the midpoint of our vacation, which meant that it was laundry day, so we took over the hotel coin-op laundry for a few hours. This was very mundane, but a necessity.
Freed from domestic activity by mid-afternoon, and tired from yesterday's exertion at Waipio Valley, we decided to take a drive around the West Maui Mountains. Route 30, the Honopilani Highway, goes south to Maalaea Harbor, and then circles west around the coastline of West Maui. The traffic was nasty here. There seemed to be way too many cars all trying to go to the same place.
We stopped at a turnout which provided a view of two other islands. The smaller one on the left was Kaho'olawe, and the larger one Lanai. A lot of people had stopped here, and were gazing out into the ocean. It didn't take us long to figure out why. They weren't looking for islands, they were looking for whales. They were finding them, too. There was a person there from the Pacific Whale Foundation, and though she couldn't provide specific information about their whale watching tours, because that would be considered "vending," as she explained, she did provide background information that was fascinating.
The ocean between Maui, Kaho'olawe, and Lanai is very shallow - not more than 200 feet deep at any point. The humpback whales, which come to Hawaii every winter to calve and breed, are attracted quite strongly to this shallow water. So there were many animals in this particular area, and it was not difficult to find the telltale evidence of a spout.
Despite all this evidence of whales, and even the sight of an occasional back or tail, there were no real photographic opportunities. This is when we became convinced that we would probably have to take a whale-watching boat tour in order to see them close enough to be satisfying.
So we returned to the highway and continued, bumper to bumper, around West Maui to Lahaina. Lahaina is a resort town on the Leeward side of West Maui. it is very tourist-oriented. We got out and walked around briefly, but did not stay there.
Beyond Lahaina, the traffic was much more tolerable. The drive was pretty, but the highway ends as such at Kapalua. From that point on the road becomes very narrow and winding, with long stretches of single lane road. This part of the trip was the best part, but again we didn't stop for pictures.
When we returned to our hotel, the West Maui mountains were putting on a show. These mountains have a very interesting appearance from our vantage point on their east. The central peaks appear split by the deep Iao Valley. The tops are shrouded in clouds nearly all the time. At this moment, the sun was setting, shining through the Iao Valley from the West below the clouds at the top. This is a picture we really would like to have had, but we didn't get it.
We found small family-owned Thai Restaurant (The Siam Thai on N. Market St. in Wailuku) from a favorable description in our guidebook, and enjoyed our dinner immensely. Not many tourists seem to have found this place.
It felt strange to begin the drive up the mountain in the dark hours of the early morning. At least the weather was cooperating. The sky was perfectly clear as we began our ascent. Once we got to the hairpin turns, and there a great many of these very tight turns to be made, we began to think that we were crazy for doing this. There were very few other cars on the road, which helped enhance this feeling.
At the National Park Booth, which was manned at this hour, the Ranger checked our Golden Eagle Passports (still valid from last year's purchase in the Cascades) and wished us well, as if what we were doing was totally normal, so that was reassuring. However, we were only fully reassured when we reached the summit and found the summit parking lot nearly full, with a half hour to go before sunrise. If we were crazy, at least we were in a lot of company.
We had brought with us lots of layered clothing, of course. hats, gloves, etc. But even with all that we were
not really prepared for the wind. The temperature was just below freezing, which was a bit warmer than the
temperatures back in Michigan, but the wind was steady and very strong, and blew right through whatever clothes
one wore. We should have brought our Gore-Tex coats, but they were really too bulky to drag all the way to Hawaii for
one moment of sightseeing.
So we shivered and went up the stairs to the observation tower, which was enclosed and had great visibility.
It was packed with people, all huddling together for warmth.
As the sky lightened in the east, we took a picture of the pre-dawn horizon.
We were anticipating an unhindered view of the upcoming down, but almost suddenly, a layer of clouds that had been below us,
began blowing up to our altitude and across our field of view. These clouds moved very quickly, a testament to the
high winds that were pushing them. It looked like the objective might be lost.
The clouds were not steady, but rather intermittent. There was still a good chance that we could get a
good view of the sunrise, if perchance the clouds were not obscuring it at the moment of the sun's arrival.
When that moment came, it was easy to see the small sliver of bright yellow on the horizon.
Within a few seconds the sliver thickened, and in less than ten seconds, the sun was too bright to look at. Suddenly filling the entire observatory with brilliant light. It was a very spectacular event indeed, the suddenness of it being the most unique and memorable aspect.
Now that it was suddenly daytime, we had planned to hike in the Haleakala Crater, near the summit. We hadn't considered
how cold it was going to be. Perhaps if we had come to the summit later in the day, the conditions would have been more
conducive to hiking. We'll do that when we go back another year.
We did want to hike, though, so we went back down the mountain looking for weather more like Hawaii than Michigan. On the way down, we encountered many large groups of bicyclists that had gone to the summit in vans and were now coasting down the mountain. Carrying tourists and bicycles to the top is quite an industry. We were really surprised at how popular this was.
Remembering how pretty the Iao Valley appeared yesterday, we drove up the Valley to the Iao Valley State Park. Here we found tour buses full of tourists with the same idea that we had. We quickly took a couple of pictures, but there were no real hiking opportunities here, so we didn't stay long.
Our guidebook told us that there was a ridge trail to be found off route 340 to the north, near Waihee.
The trail is called the Waihee Ridge Trail, but we had some trouble finding its starting point. It is actually
located on a road marked as belonging to the Boy Scout Camp. We found it, packed lunch, and started out.
In general ridge trails tend to go up, up, up - gaining lots of altitude,
which is a great test of one's conditioning. As a payoff, in general, they tend to offer great views, and the higher you go,
the better the views tend to get. Well, this trail was no exception on either count. It starts out with a really boring hike
up a steep and long concrete driveway. Then it enters some woods, which are very pretty, definitely an improvement.
Only after we had been hiking uphill for more than half an hour did we come to the ridge, and then the good part really began.
As we proceeded up this ridge, we had great views down on either side. On our left was a beautiful green valley with a stream running through the bottom of it, and beyond that, you could see all the way down to Kahului Bay and the city of Kahului, where our hotel was. You could even see the flanks of Haleakala beyond. On the right was a similar valley, and the ocean beyond, but no city. Ahead of us were the West Maui mountains, shrouded in clouds. We kept going to the end of the trail, where there was a picnic table, so we ate lunch there. We had a really great hike.
While we were walking down, we remembered that the Pacific Whale Foundation representative had said that the last whale watching tour left their pier in Maalaea Harbor at 3 PM. We had not made any reservations, and we guessed that they were probably full. We didn't think we had enough time to get there by 3, either, but we figured we would go there anyway, if only to sign up for a cruise the following day.
So we retraced our steps, which was the only option anyway, and from the trailhead we drove south through
Wailuku to Maalaea Harbor, arriving just a few minutes after 3. this is where we got phenomenally lucky.
The cruise was still boarding, There was a line of people to get on the boat, so we got on the end of the line.
We were the last ones. They had space available, though not much, and we boarded almost immediately for a two-hour
cruise, hoping to see some whales, and of course, if possible, some exciting whale activity.
We had already seen Gray Whales migrating north along the Oregon Coast in last year's Cascades Vacation. We
had also been fortunate to Orcas feeding in the San Juan Island of Puget Sound later in that week, We had never
seen humpback whales, though, so we were hoping for the best. Humpback whales had been reduced by commercial whaling
to as few as 1000 animals by 1966, but after international protection they have recovered to
nearly triple that number. However, they are still considered an endangered species. Adult Humpback whales
are 43 to 45 feet long, and weigh about 40 tons
It didn't take long to locate a pod of whales on the surface. The boat may not legally approach the animals within
100 yards, so the captain cut the engine and let the boat drift. This made the boat heave from side to side
rather strongly, increasing the difficulty of getting a good picture. We got two pictures of this pod, though.
During a lull in the action, to give you an idea of what the ride was like,
we shot a picture of the boat, showing the West Maui Mountains in the
background. A crowd of people had collected near the front, searching the
area for signs of whales. At this point we had
to change the film in the camera, and they starting seeing whales again.
Suddenly, a whale breached (jumped out of the water), and then another. No one really knows why
they engage in these behaviors, but it is certainly amazing to watch. We saw those,
but couldn't get them captured on film. Then we got lucky. Doubly lucky, actually,
Between our boat and a West Maui beach, two whales breached together within a second of each other,
and we caught it on film! The photo shows the splash of the first breach
while the second whale is still out of the water.
A few seconds later there was another breach nearby, and we caught it also. We think this whale is slightly
more out of the water than the previous one, and we enlarged it as far as we could considering the
image quality.
Before this cruise ended, we did get closer to a whale, although not within 100 yards. On this cruise we actually shot a lot more pictures, but these are the best ones. When it was over, we still had some time to kill before dinner, so we drove to Kihei, where the Foundation had offered to provide us with a free whale poster. It's a great poster, showing a professional shot of whale breaching, but not as precious to us as our memories of the whale watching tour, and our own admittedly less professional shots.
While in the area, we went down to Makena and dropped off a postcard at a hotel for a personal friend who was coming to Maui a few days later. We were going to miss him by about 24 hours, but at least we left a surprise gift. It was now getting dark, so we went back to Kahului for dinner, satisfied that we had just experienced our longest, but one of our two best days of vacation so far, the other being the volcano day on Hawaii four days earlier.
The drive was pretty, but after what we had done, it did not seem spectacular.
We stopped at a number of places along the way, but nothing really stood out as worthy of special mention,
nor worthy of taking any pictures, until just before Hana, when we came to Waianapanapa State Park. This park is
on the coastline, where the sea crashes relentlessly against a jagged black coast made of lava rock. The sea has
carved all kinds of interesting formations in the rock, and the coast goes on like this for miles.
There is a path that goes along the coast. Where the rock gets wet from blowing spray, it can get kind of slippery,
but it is quite a fascinating experience to walk along this coastline. We were originally going to walk for 15 minutes
and wound up going out for 45 minutes before turning around.
Everywhere you looked there were blowholes and other phenomena where the waves could be forced into a small space in the
rock with explosive results. We took a picture of the whole scene, and also a pair of pictures showing
a hole in the rock and what happens when a wave comes in. This process repeats itself over and over, all up and down
the coast.
After lunch, we drove down to the beach in Hana, then continued on the Piilani highway around the island to Oheo Gulch. This area is part of the Haleakala National Park. This section is also known as the "Seven Pools." We stopped here again, and took the short path to some of the lower pools. We didn't find them as interesting as the wild coastline at Waianapanapa. We hoped to be able to see the Big Island across the channel, but it was too misty. There is a trail that goes to the Makahiku Falls and Waimoku Falls, but we didn't take it, probably a missed opportunity.
We had our choice of continuing around the island or returning the way we came. We decided to continue, even though the road becomes decidedly poor. It was slow going, but we avoided doing any damage to the rental car. It was probably not worth it, in retrospect. This side of the island is drier and much less interesting.
We had dinner at the Thai place in Wailuku again. Our last full day on Maui was not nearly as efficient as the day before, but is was much more relaxing, and as a whole, Maui turned out to be a lot of fun. This story continues with our trip to Kauai in the next chapter.
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