Exploring the Halekala Wilderness

My dad and my step-mom Lorrie came to visit for a few weeks. Since they've both been to Oahu a couple of times, I decided we should visit the lush island paradise that is Maui. It's a nice change from the crowded business of Honolulu. We sent them over a day early so they could do a bit of island exploring before the bigger adventure I had planned: Haleakala. Yes, I know anyone can go to the top of Haleakala. However, there's a wonderful and unique backpacking trip through the crater that was my real aim.

Technically the Haleakala crater isn't a crater because it's not bounded on all sides. It's an erosionary depression with new cinder cones growing up and up. I'm going to just call it a crater because it's easier. I found an article on this hike shortly after moving to Hawaii. The logistics were such that I put it off until Dad was looking for a little adventure. None of us had been backpacking in a while, and Lorrie was brand new to the sport. (Spoiler: she did great!) I stressed myself out reading everything I could find on the hike. It was actaully fairly hard to find info if you're not staying in the cabins. So, I included it here in case anyone other than my mom reads this post. (Hi Mom!)

Permits are required to camp and are given out at the visitor center on a first come first served basis. You can pick them up day before or day of your hike. They are free with your park entry fee or annual pass. There are a limit to the number they give out, but it's rare for them to sell out. There are three cabins with pretty much anything you could want for camping, but they book up fast and cost $75 per night. Each cabin is rented to one group only and can hold up to 12 people. We didn't stay in cabins, though. We stayed in tents. Camping is available near two of the cabins, Paliku (9.8 miles from the Sliding Sands trailhead) and Holua (3.9 miles from the Halemau'u trailhead).

Some people choose to do this hike the hard way and start at Holua. We chose the downhill route. This meant Mike dropped us off at the Sliding Sands trailhead with all of our packs. He drove the car down to the Halemau'u trailhead and hitchhiked back up. This was one of the logistical pieces I was worried about. Turns out, it was no big deal. In no time, Mike came cruising up in the back seat of a bright red convertible Mustang looking for all the world like he expected such a stylish ride. It was the first car that passed that picked him up. Since it's a dead end road to the top, I think people are more likely to give hikers a lift. You definitely want to do this at the beginning of the trip. No one will want to pick you up after three days of hiking and no baths.

As soon as Mike arrived, we set off along Sliding Sands trail down into the Mars-like landscape. The trail has panoramic high desert views the entire way to the base of the crater. The sand is finely crushed volcanic rock of varying colors based on age: black, gray, orange, and red. Beautiful little succulent-like plants called silverswords break up the landscape here and there. Silverswords are unique to Haleakala and only grow around 8000 feet in elevation. They're actually in the sunflower family. So, they're not succulents. I'm just full of useful trivia today.

The first cabin is Kapaloa. It sits in a grassy meadow under the rim of the mountain. It has water and an outhouse, which are both kind of nice to have after 5.6 miles of dusty walking. Remember, water needs to be filtered. The taps are outside of the cabins (another of the answers I struggled to find). We sat at the picnic table out front, had some snacks and watched a nene (Hawaii's endemic goose) and some chukar birds wandering around looking for crumbs. This was the first view of actual life inside the crater.

The next part of the trail was a field of dark gray a'a (rough lava formed by splatter rather than flow) that was starting to grow in with plants. The contrasting colors with the vivid blue sky made this a favorite section of the trail for me.

Eventually the landscape turned to grasses and actual trees as we neared the campsite. The Paliku cabin is at the base of one of the crater walls. The wall itself has trees growing all over it. It's pretty impressive. At this point we're above the clouds. We chose two campsites and set up our tents in the grasses. Everyone was pretty tired. We made simple dinners of pouched chicken and instant mashed potatoes with the jet boil. The minute the sun went down the temperature plummeted and we retreated to our sleeping bags for warmth. We woke later to a sky full of stars. There was some sort of haze in the air that made it almost look like static.

The next morning we woke up to frosted tents. We packed our stuff, topped off our water and walked the 6.5 miles to Holua Camp. The trail takes the opposite side of the a'a field and across the Ko'olau Gap. The a'a field on this side has far less flora. At the end of the field the earth turns to dark gray sand. Against the crater rim, big jagged rocks split the hillside looking for all the world like a laying down dinosaur with stegosaurus plates ,amiright? No? Like the big boulder is the head, and the tail trails off up the hill on the left side? Ok, fine. I'm an adult child, I get it.

Shortly after that section I took a step and nearly squished a big wolf spider. On closer inspection she was carrying tons of babies on her back. Way cool! The spider, with legs included, was about the length of my pointer finger. I'm super glad that wasn't in my house/bed/sleeping bag, but was cool to see along the trail.  We were back to the gray and red sands when we found this gorgeous painted section.

The trail took us through the Ko'olau Gap's dark sands with little bits of lava strewn here and there to a little side trail called the Silversword loop. It lived up to its name and was totally worth the extra .1 mile it added to the trip.

Walking into Holua camp was similar to the other side, but with more lava rock. The plants started coming up and the views were, of course, spectacular. The cabin came into view a short distance later. There's a little cave above the cabin big enough for an emergency holdout for a couple of people. The campground is actually not next to the cabin. It's up a hill further than you'd actually think to walk. Our site was surrounded by a little fairy ring of black a'a and backed by the giant wall of the crater. There's an outhouse up there and a stable for the horse tours that operate occasionally. We're still mostly above the clouds here, but the winds brought in airy clouds and mists that occasionally socked us in completely.

We arrived early enough to enjoy the area for a bit. Mike and I played with the drone for a bit. A few large groups of day hikers came and went. We set up camp, had an early dinner, talked over tea. The sunset didn't bring on the cold like the previous night. It was pleasant, but once the sun goes down, there's no real reason to be awake since campfires aren't allowed. Mike woke me up around 3 AM to check out a clear sky full of incredible stars. Whatever haze had blocked the view the previous night was gone. The stars were clear, bright, focused. We could see the Milkyway arcing across the horizon. Between the new moon and the low cloud cover, no light dulled our view. It's crazy to realize how much there is to see when you fully escape human influence. Being in the middle of the ocean has its advantages.

The following morning took us along a ton of switchbacks up Halemau'u trail back to the car. It was a beautiful and remarkably comfortable hike for its elevation gain. Every switchback brought fantastic views across the crater. The car was right where Mike left it, undisturbed. The trip went super smoothly.

We grabbed lunch (real food!) at Grandma's in Kuya. Then we checked out a nearby lavender farm, which was beautiful and fragrent. Finally, we took a dip in the ocean to clean some of the dirt off. It felt amazing!

Things to note: Hawaiian doesn't allow trekking poles as a carry-on. It also doesn't allow camp stoves or fuel. Mokulele, on the otherhand, let us take both. The ride is far more awesome too. Support the little guy! We picked up jetboil fuel at Maui Adventure Sports in Kahului. We flew in the night before and stayed the night. The other option is to fly in morning of the hike. There's plenty of time. The sun is super intense, so I strongly suggest hat, glasses, hood, long sleeves and sunscreen. Our lips were totally chapped for a few days after. Sunscreen them and use chapstick. Oh, and don't forget to charge your phone or camera. I took over 500 photos in three days.

Artsy Melbourne, Australia Part 4

Links to Parts One, Two and Three.

Melbourne in a word is vibrant. There's a huge art scene and every building is either designed with an artistic element or has amazing street art. It's trendy with excellent food found hidden in tiny restaurants down narrow alleyways.

We'd finally completed all the craziness and plans in the trip and had a few days just to chill in Melbourne. I found an AirBnb in the CBD and it was the perfect home base. We checked in and found dinner at a little Italian place with live music in an alleyway. Note on the alleys, the city made rent super cheap for shops and restaurants to open in the alleys between buildings. They've turned into places people want to be, while simultaneously avoiding the garbage and dangerous spaces people generally think of. Way cool.

The next morning Mike and I went for a running tour through the city, along the river and around the tan track that circles the botanical gardens. It was beautiful. Mike decided that he needed to finally cut off the crazy curly mop he was growing. So we found a little barber shop and twenty mins later, we were out the door and he was looking like his handsome self again.


That afternoon we went for a guided walking tour of Melbourne by the same company that did the one in Sydney. The guides are college kids who are Melbourne (in this case) natives and work for tips. It's pretty cool because they can make a few hundred dollars in three hours walking and talking. On this tour I learned that the Aboriginals were classified as fauna until 1967. Their children were taken from them to be raised by white people and assimilated into their culture. People are the worst. Anyway, we saw all the cool things.

The next day we hopped a bus for Healsville about an hour outside of Melbourne. The tour took us to the Healsville Sanctuary, a vineyard for wine and lunch, and a chocolate shop. The Healsville Sanctuary is a zoo of sorts. They rescue native animals and release the ones that can be back into the wild. The ones that remain are used for education. Way cool! It was a record day of 111 degress (Fahrenheit, I know this isn't the US which is somehow proud of being archaic) and HOT HOT HOT! Most of the animals were really lazy and any encounters were canceled for the day, but it did mean we had the place to ourselves and a guide, which was amazing! My favorites were the echidnas and the platypus. Mike loved the tree kangaroos.



We met the rest of the group (who spent all morning wine tasting and were happy happy folks) at Tokar Estates. The vineyard was beautiful. We had a tasting, but I really wasn't into their wine. Sad, I usually love reds. Lunch was very good, but slow. Last we stopped at a chocolate factory and shop. We tasted a whole bunch of their chocolate bars and bought ice cream, because we're obviously little pigs. By the time we made it back to Melbourne, a storm system had moved in and the temperature dropped to 73 degrees. In one hour. Totally nuts. By evening, it was in the low 60s.


I woke up feeling off, like way off. We were supposed to do a long run and I had a sore throat. We had an easy breakfast and tea while waiting for the rain to stop. Then we did some wandering around the city to check out some of the lanes and arcades (alleys). We found an awesome Japanese restaurant called Chocolate Buddha for lunch and had soup, veggies, a bit of meat. Clean food. Eventually I needed a nap so we could catch a boat later.

I found tickets for a burlesque show on a showboat out in the harbor. It was fabulous! They fed us appetizers until we were stuffed. Me with sushi, Mike with everything else. We also had champagne and some syrupy blue thing that looked pretty but lasted like pure sugar. The boat took us around the harbor and into the sunset with beautiful city views over the harbor. The show was fabulous, cheeky, sassy. I loved it!



On the way back a possum was hanging out of a tree and it was not remotely afraid of me, but it was ridiculously cute. Why are American possums so terrifying?

The last morning I was downright sick. Whatever nasty cold had been going around hit both of us really hard. We packed up our stuff and headed up to Fitzroy neighborhood to see the street art and find breakfast. Breakfast was at a bomb little hipster café. I found more GF avo toast. It was just my thing on that trip. Ok, always, but I think I ate it every day in both Sydney and Melbourne. We wandered through a pretty little park before catching the bus to the airport a little early so we could rest with our pockets full of tissues.

We boarded the plane and immediately went to sleep. A few hours later I woke up and started looking for entertainment. The map showed us soon landing in Melbourne from Sydney. Whaaaaaaat?! Then the pilot came on the intercom and informed us that we would be landing in Melbourne in 15 minutes. Basically we found out that the plane had a de-icing issue that the pilot wasn't comfortable with flying over the pacific for eight hours with. Um, totally understandable in my book. The plane wasn't fixable so they rescheduled our flight for the following morning at 10 am and put everyone in hotels for the night. By the time we went back through customs, caught the bus to the hotel and checked in, we were tanked. We got a wakeup call at 245 AM, not meant for us. So hopefully the other person didn't miss his flight. Finally we got up and used our food vouchers for the fantastic breakfast buffet at the hotel. A bus picked us up and took us back to the airport. The woman at the check in counter gave us an additional $50 in vouchers to use in the airport, so I stocked up on lunches and snacks for later and still had $10 to give to a stranger. She was thrilled! We ended up on a different plane and arrived safely at our house about 17 hours after we had planned. The sickness lingered for another week and a half.

On a high note, Australia was fabulous! Good food, nice people, beautiful cities, gorgeous reefs, what more could a girl ask for?

Dirtbagging the Perfect Getaway in Kauai

When I was in Japan, I watched The Perfect Getaway with a group of friends. The movie was entertaining and the company was good, but the scenery was unbelievable! I decided I had to go! That was 2010. Since I have a bucket list that is five pages long... not kidding... I finally made it happen this year. Mike and I chose to keep the trip as simple as possible. Fly in, hike, camp two nights, hike, fly out. It ended up being a little more dirtbag than usual, but was all the more fun for that reason.

Mike and I took a 6 am island hopper flight to Kauai. We boarded a bus to Hanalei where we rented a camp stove since you can't take one on flights. Seriously, TSA, I can have a lighter, but not a camp stove without fuel? Logic people, logic! Anyway, the bus stops in Hanalei which is the cutest little North Shore Hawaii town. I like it better than Haleiwa. From there, we hitchhiked to the trailhead. Neither of us had ever thumbed a ride before and it took a solid 10 minutes, but eventually a beat up Tacoma pulled over. We threw our packs in the back and had a fantastic ride with Rashal, an Indian international student out adventuring while waiting for his work visa to show up. He took us all the way in.

At 10:00 we started our hike. The hike is 11 miles up and over ridges, around cliffs and through valleys to a gorgeous beach. The weather was partly cloudy with a light sprinkle of rain, which completely saved the day and kept the temperature down. The first two miles of the trail are steep, up and over a ridge from one beach to another. They're also packed with tourists with very little regard for trail etiquette. After that, we met very few people, a few day hikers here and there and a few backpackers coming or going, all friendly, some barefoot.

The trail winds through a tropical jungle full of birds, palms and lizards curving suddenly into open mountain vistas with turquoise water far below. Along the way we found ripe mountain apples to munch on. There are also mango trees everywhere, but they weren't in season. We took a brief stop for lunch (Mike informs me that snacks do not count as lunch) at a picnic area near mile 6. Eventually the trail rounded a bend with a sign that read Dangerous Cliffs ahead. Cool! Our type of hike! One side is very sandy and I was glad we had left the rain behind. The other side was a narrow trail cut into the rocky cliff. Neither area was as scary as people made it out to be. However, the sand was a deep reddish brown with yucca plants growing there and there, the cliffs were black, and the turquoise waves crashed on the rocks below. It was very beautiful and I could see how people might get distracted.

Finally we rounded the corner and descended into Kalalau Valley. We followed a red dirt trail to a lovely stream with little waterfalls and pools, then up into the campground which is really just a bunch of trees that people hook hammocks up to. We did not have a hammock and I'm utterly disappointed about that detail. If you go, take one!! After some (too much) research, we left our tent behind and brought just the rainfly, our sleeping mats, inflatable pillows and a blanket. We left all these at a campsite in the middle and went straight to the waterfall at the far end of the beach for a shower. After 6 hours of walking in the dirt, it was amazing!

I rehydrated some turkey chili for dinner and we ate on the ground, hobo style, passing the cook pot back and forth. It was perfect! Afterward, we heated some water for tea on the beach while the sun set. We dragged our mats, pillows and blanket out to the sand and slept under the stars. I hadn't thought about the moon being full. It was brilliant and super duper bright. Not great for sleeping or star gazing. haha!

I woke at dawn to pink tinged skies over the ocean and dramatic green cliffs surrounding the valley. Perfect. We put our stuff back at camp and went to explore the sea caves before breakfast. There are a series of tide created caves all along the beach. Some are small indents, others are huge caverns. We walked into the pure blackness of one that ended in a pool. Mike swam in to see if it went anywhere, fortunately, it did not. I'm adventurous, but have my limits.

After breakfast, we walked back to the river to fill waters. Mike lost a sandal in the water and we jumped from rock to rock all the way out to the ocean to find it. No luck, but it was fun! We found some abandoned Keens that fit him and headed up the Kalalau Valley trail. It vaguely follows a stream up to a small waterfall with a swimming hole and rope swing. It may go further, but I was pretty happy with that spot and my legs weren't feeling like I needed another 11 mile day. 10 was enough. :) The stream was brisk and refreshing and deep enough that I didn't bottom out with the rope swing. On the way back down the trail, we ran into a huge group of people heading up to the falls. Timing win!

The rest of the day was quiet, lunch, a nap, some card games, and watching an incredible sunset on the beach. Mike moved us to a beachfront campsite that opened up that morning. It was perfect! We had our own little path to the super soft sand. All of the campers come out to the beach for sunset. I counted just over 40 people including myself. There may have been a few more in the tree line though. It's a big area and we didn't spend much time with others, though I assume you can be as social as you want to be. We slept in our campsite which offered a bit more protection from the wind and midnight sun. One of the feral kitties that roams the campground decided to walk across my feet during the night. I have no idea where the cats came from. There aren't any along the trail and it's a solid 11 miles to civilization. Strange!

We woke at dawn to a beautiful moonset over the ridge while the sun turned the sky pink and blue. We had breakfast, packed up quickly, and were on the trail by 630. It was really hot the day before and we were hoping to avoid too much sun on the exposed parts of the trail. It worked. We were in the shade or under the canopy for most of the day. We took a detour by the middle campground to go check out a super tall waterfall.

The last two miles of trail were so much harder than the previous 10 (including the waterfall side trip). The people watching was interesting, but it's hard walking up a seemingly endless incline with a pack while you're getting shoved by teenage boys who are all about getting to the bottom faster than their brothers. Yeesh! There were still some friendly people though. The trip back took 6.5 hours with the side trip and a few nutrition breaks. We showered at the beach so we'd be less offensive. Mike ran right into Rashal as we were heading in to change into real clothes. He gave us a ride into town, again! Seriously, nicest guy there ever was!

We spent a few hours in Hanalei finding lunch and exploring the shops. The bus ride back was an adventure, full of homeless people, drunks, interesting people, and teenagers. We got to the airport shuttle stop in Lihue to find out that it stopped running early on weekends. So, we walked the last few miles to the airport and caught our 730 pm flight out. Whirlwind trip, but I wouldn't change a thing. Every moment was just as interesting and lively as the last. Someday we will kayak in and spend a few more nights.

One thing worth mentioning, we thought we were going somewhere remote and secluded. We were wrong. The beach and campground never seemed crowded. However, there were helicopters flying overhead from 800 am to about 530 pm every day. Zodiacs and sailing tours sped along the coastline until sunset. Nights were peaceful and quiet.

Mike and I rewatched The Perfect Getaway when we returned and realized just how little of it was actually filmed on the trail. Really I just love Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant and Chris Hemsworth. So rewatching a pretty movie with pretty people, kind of great!