The Halemau'u Trail is one of two trails that enter the backcountry of Haleakala National Park from the west. Haleakala National Park is on the island of Maui in the state of Hawaii.
The National Park Service is a large government bureaucracy, beholden to special interest groups, Congress, and ultimately the American people. Often, this works much better than might be expected. I suspect that this is largely due to the professionalism, intelligence and idealism of the men and women who chose to work for the NPS. However, occasionally the results can be baffling. This is the case for Haleakala National Park, where the Park Service permits horses to use the Halemau'u Trail.
The Halemau'u Trail descends a steep slope about 1000' into the crater. To manage hiker/horse encounters the Park Service advises hikers to stand aside and allow horses to pass. The slope is so steep on several long segments of the trail that most hikers would not be able to find a safe place to stand aside. As I ascended the trail on November 9, 2002 at 1:15 PM, I encountered a horseback party of two descending at approximately 7000' elevation. I hurried up the trail and climbed some second class (easy) rock to get a safe distance from the trail. The young woman behind me was not so fortunate. The horseback party stopped and waited for her to move up the trail to a location that allowed her to stand adjacent to the trail among shrubs and other vegetation. At that location, she could not move a safe distance from the trail, in my opinion. Also, she was unable to avoid trampling vegetation. Fortunately, the horseback party passed without incident.
The Park Service requires visitors to the crater backcountry to bag and pack out all toilet tissue. This is because the cellulose in the tissue attracts ants. These, in turn, attack other insects. Horses, on the other hand, are permitted to defecate freely in the crater. I saw two horseback parties on the Halemau'u Trail. None of the horses of either party were equipped with excrement catching devices of the sort that are used in Grand Canyon National Park and elsewhere. Horse manure contains cellulose that would seem to attract ants as well as toilet paper. Even if this is not the case, it is an unexplained inconsistency that undermines compliance with toilet paper policy.
Horse manure is not part of the natural environment, adds foreign material and nutrients to the crater ecosystem and detracts from the natural beauty of the park.
Part of the appeal of the crater floor is the vast expanses of trackless sand and fine ash. Horseback traffic on the crater floor forces hikers to move off the trail and create additional tracks. This happens when hikers meet as well, but hiking parties can pass safely much closer together than hiking/horseback parties and the consequent impact is minimized.
Horses, with 5 times the weight and a fraction of the foot area of the typical hiker, apply 20 times the pressure to the trail, as much as 80 pounds/square inch. This is several times the pressure exerted by an automobile. The pressure from the hooves of horses causes softening of the trail and erosion far faster than equal numbers of hikers. Hikers, finding the trail unpleasantly soft underfoot, eroded, or contaminated with horse manure may generate new trails, thereby further degrading the environment.
A search of the World-Wide Web with the Internet search engine Google finds several commercial horseback guide services offering trips to the Haleakala crater. One such service, Pony Express Tours, offers two rides per day six days per week at $155 to $190 per person plus tax. Each ride may consist of up to eight riders. Fully booked, annual revenue would be $860,000. These numbers suggest that the small special interest of horseback guide services, highly motivated by the revenue that it makes by exploiting the beauty of the park, will object to restrictions that protect hikers on the Halemau'u Trail and the beauty and ecology of Haleakala National Park from horseback parties. Consequently, I encourage all who share my concern for these values to contact Donald W. Reeser, Superintendent, Haleakala National Park, P.O. Box 369, Makawao, HI, 96768, Phone: 808.572.4400, Don_Reeser@nps.gov
I invited Superintendent Reeser to comment. His response verified that requiring the collection of horse excrement has been considered and confirmed that commercial horse tour operators oppose further regulation of horse access. Superintendent Reeser chose not to respond to the safety issue that I described above. He summarized some of the accomplishments and environmental concerns of the National Park Service that I applaud and share respectively.
The Halemau'u Trail (lower right) descends a steep ridge above Koolau Gap. The cinder cone, Puu o Maui (center, 8193'), rises from the valley floor beyond numerous flows of basalt. This view is looking south from 7200' at 8:45 AM.
This lovely cluster of Haleakala silversword (Argyroxiphium sandwicense ssp. macrocephalum) is near the north end of the Silversword Loop Trail. This view is looking southwest from 7160' at 10:15 AM.
From 0.1 mile north of the trail junction on the northeast slope of Halali'i is another fine view of Pu'u o Maui (right of center). Pu'u'ula'ula (Red Hill, 10023'), the summit of Haleakala and the highest point on the island of Maui, is on the skyline above the left rim of Pu'u o Maui. The 'a'a basalt in the foreground has been nearly covered by wind-deposited volcanic ash and sand. This view is looking west from 7200' at 10:45 AM.
This is the same view as the previous image but from the north slope of northeast slope of Halali'i west of Kawilinau (Bottomless Pit) on the Halemau'u Trail (foreground), the Sliding Sands Trail is visible above Pu'u o Maui. This view is looking west from 7360' at 11:00 AM.
This graph summarizes my trip. The horizontal axis is 24 hour Pacific Standard Time. These data were logged by an altimeter watch. My fastest hours were 1060 ft/hour at 3:00 PM and -1080 ft/hr at 8:00 AM.
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Date created: 2002.12.30
Last modified: 2003.12.19
Copyright © 2003, Walter A. Siegmund
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