Maui? Wow Whee!

Aloha friends and family,

In the last post I talked generally about what’s been going on in my life out in Hawaii since March. I’m following that up with two posts about some of the bigger adventures I’ve had since then.

A few days after I got back from the mainland in April, my good friend Owen from high school came out for a ten-day visit. The first half of the trip we were on O’ahu. We had some beach days, went to a hidden pool near Diamond Head crater, snuck into the hot tubs at the Sheraton hotel, hiked, played volleyball (and got more $1 tacos from Dave and Buster’s afterwards than I’d like to admit. Fine, I’ll say - 14), and rented a car and drove around the island.

The hike we meant to do was called Stairway to Heaven, but the hike we ended up doing was Kulana’ahane Trail. Stairway to Heaven hike is famous for having incredible views of the island; allegedly on a clear day you can see the ocean on all sides of the island, from the North Shore to the east side of the island. It’s called Stairway because you used to be able to hike up to the top of the mountain along metal stairs that the military used back in the day. However, the stairs haven’t been maintained much in the past few decades and the government has put lots of effort into preventing people from climbing up the staircase to avoid liability, so it’s highly illegal to go up that route. The back route through the valley and up the ridge, however, is legal, and that’s the route Owen and I tried to do. We missed the turnoff onto the trail, though, and hiked a trail that ran roughly parallel called Kulana’ahane Trail. It was still a strenuous, all-day hike with great views at the top, but we didn’t get quite as high up, and we didn’t get to see the famous stairs unfortunately. Nonetheless, it was a great hike and we still had energy for volleyball afterwards.

Towards the end of our time on O’ahu, we rented a car and drove around the island. We went to several places on the west side of the island I’d never been before, including Ewa Beach, White Plains Beach, Keawaula Beach, and Makua Beach. The west side is super remote and pretty, with only one road going to the westernmost parts of the island. At a certain point, around Keawaula Beach, the road became military only so we had to turn around. My favorite out of these new beaches was Makua, which was really long and right next to a beautiful valley between the rugged west side mountains. We also saw some seals come up on the beach.

We continued on from the west side to the North Shore, which is a relatively short distance if we could’ve taken a bird’s flight, but to get on the road to North Shore we had to go back almost all the way to Pearl Harbor, so the drive was over an hour. On the North Shore we stopped at Pua’ena point, Waimea Bay, Sunset Beach, and then ate at Jax Wood Fired Pizza in Haleiwa for dinner, which had the best pizza on the island I’ve had (although it’s a tiny sample size for me).

We had the rental until 10am the next day, so we got up early and went to Lanikai Beach on the windward coast and then drove around the east side on the way home to get some views.

In the afternoon we flew to Maui, where we stayed for the rest of Owen’s visit in a timeshare that his exceedingly generous aunt let us use. Before getting to the timeshare, though, we had one of the most awesome and scary drives I think either of us have ever had. Google Maps was telling us to go around the southern part of the west side of Maui even though it looked like the northern route should be much faster based on the distance. We’d heard the northern route was scenic so we went against Google Maps’s suggestion and quickly learned why the northern route was not suggested. It was a treacherous drive, with narrow, windy roads right along the edge of several hundred feet tall cliffs. Many sections of the road were far too narrow for two cars to pass each other, so we pulled over many times and even had to reverse a couple times to get out of the way of oncoming vehicles which was really scary to do in a new car on twisting, unfamiliar roads. There were parts of the drive where we had to go 5 mph and even then it was sketchy because of the many blind spots on turns where the only safe way to get around was inching up in our car at a walking speed until we could see around the corner. The views were unbelievable, though, with sheer cliffs dropping into the ocean and beautiful hillsides.

It reminded me of the cliffs in Ireland in some ways, although these were rockier and redder/browner compared to Ireland’s green pastures atop the cliffs. We stopped towards the end of the dangerous section of road at an attraction called the Nakalele Blowhole.

We had spent the entire drive on the edge of our seats, so we did a brief exploration of the resort, got some Thai at a food truck park, and picked up groceries for the coming days’ adventures before hitting the hay.

On Friday, we drove to the Pipiwai Trail in the southeastern part of Haleakala National Park. The drive was much more open than the northwestern road we’d taken on Thursday, though there still were points where we had to go really slowly. In the beginning of the drive we were going by volcanic farmland in the lovely open country of Maui at a pretty high elevation of a couple thousand feet before getting down closer to the ocean along windier, narrower roads and seeing beaches with black sand and volcanic rocks.

After a while, the land transitioned into more rainforest, as we went from the leeward to the windward side of the island. The hike was a fun, relatively easy one with lots of beautiful plants and trees, as well as a stretch of hike that went through a bamboo forest. The hike ended at a tall waterfall in the thick of the rainforest.

On the way home, we stopped in Makena Beach Park at Big Beach, a beautiful spot with a shore break (i.e., the waves crashed right on the beach). It was pretty wide with a few people, including some playing volleyball, and most chilling doing their own thing. The water was pristine and there were good views of nearby cliffs and the island of Lanai in the distance. We watched the sunset before driving back home.

At night, we checked out the beach our resort was on and observed the stars. The visibility was great and we saw several shooting stars over the course of an hour.

We had another big adventure day on Saturday which started with us driving to the top of the volcano, Haleakala. It took about two hours to drive to the top and it was along windy roads, but there were two clear lanes the whole time, so it wasn’t as difficult as our other drives. The peak of the volcano is at just above 10,000 feet so we were way above the clouds. We probably passed through most of the clouds around 5,000-7,000 feet, and then we saw clouds, ocean, and the two taller volcanoes on Big Island from the summit.

One popular thing to do at the national park is watch the sunset from the peak of Haleakala. We didn’t get up early enough to be on top of the volcano for a pre-7am sunrise, but I kind of wish we had because I think it would be amazing to see the sun rise over the clouds. That’s OK, because it gives me reason to come back.

We hiked down about a mile and a half into the crater at the top of Haleakala along Sliding Sands Trail. There are campsites about ten miles in, and I think the crater is one of the best viewing spots for stars in the whole world. The terrain inside the crater was unlike anything I’d ever seen; it looked like it was from a Star Wars movie or Mars. The rock was dark red and brown and black and gray, and inside the crater there were these smaller peaks called cinder cones, which the trail wound through and on. The land looked so uncivilized, like nobody had been there before except for some ancient settlers who’d left the trail.

After Haleakala, we went to Baldwin Beach on our way home. The waves were pretty choppy and crashing right on shore so they were fun to play in. I was swimming for a while alongside a dad who was letting himself get beat up by the ocean, which was a funny sight.

Sunday was a nice chill day compared to our past several jam-packed days. We hung out at the resort pool in the morning for a couple hours and then went for a run along the board walk and coast. We spent the afternoon on Ka’anapali Beach, right next to our resort.

We read and swam for several hours before walking the Kapalua Coastal Trail in the afternoon. The trail went along some cool beaches and had nice views of rocky coastline with some coves tucked away.

We then went to Slaughterhouse Beach, which was one of the coves we could see from the trail. The beach was supposed to have top notch snorkeling, but I was too nervous to get close to the reef because the waves were sizeable and I thought I was going to get smacked into the reef. I think the spot might be more suitable for snorkeling during the calmer summer swells.

In the evening, we went to dinner at Paia Fish Market in Lahaina and had some of the best fish I’ve ever had. Afterwards we walked around Lahaina, which is a cute, old-fashioned town, checking out stores for a while.

We had to check out on Monday so we had a leisurely day hanging out at the resort. Since we only had a limited amount of time, I’m happy that we got to do a bunch of big adventures around the island, but sitting at the resort on the last day I was thinking to myself that I could’ve done that for a whole week. The resort was glamorous, with a picturesque pool and hot tub looking out onto the ocean.

We spent the day lounging, reading, swimming, and walking along the beach and it was lovely. In the afternoon, we dropped off our rental car and went to the airport. We both flew back to Honolulu and then Owen went from there back to the mainland, capping off his visit. It was amazing to have another of my best friends visit me out here and all the more incredible that we got to explore a new island together. I’m grateful for the opportunities and adventures we had together that made it such a fun trip. It’s been super fun having visitors come out and gives me fresh, different perspectives about life out here. That’s a wrap on Owen’s visit and Maui. Mahalo for reading.