Maui (2001)

Our first destination on Maui, very early in the morning, is the Haleakala Crater, which sits atop a large mountain on Maui. On our ascent up the road leading to the summit (and our horseback ride trail head), we notice hundreds and hundreds of group-led families riding down on earth cruiser bicycles.

This ride is famous. It starts at the summit at the crack of dawn, and bicyclists are able to descend several miles—all downhill—without need for pedaling. We are told that the ride is better than the famous "Road to Hana," but after seeing it, I must disagree. The ride group requires one to dress in geeky, dayglow uniforms, wear bulky motorcycle helmets, and ride a low-performance bicycle passively down the road. While the views and ability to ride a long way without pedaling must be pleasant, we find the Road to Hana adventure to be extremely enjoyable—undoubtedly more so than these swarms of ride groups.

But I digress. Our adventure today is the well-known, highly-touted Haleakala Crater all-day horseback ride with PonyExpress Tours. The ride takes us 2.5 hours to cross most of the crater floor, and another 2 hours to return. The crater is formed, surprisingly, by wind erosion, not volcanic action. The colors—reds, blacks, greens, greys, browns—and formations appeared very surrealistic within the crater (see photo above). The sands within the crater are very loose, giving one of the trails the name "Sliding Sands." Inside, the crater is cold, utterly arid, and dusty. It is immense in size.

The experience makes us feel like we are "on top of the world," since, at 10,000 feet of elevation at the summit trail head, we are above much of the cloud cover in this part of Maui. In fact, on our ride back, we gallup through clouds passing through, and it seemed like we are passing through a blizzard or forest fire.

The last eruption for this volcano was over 10,000 years ago, yet, due to lack of rain, we see very little vegetative growth. One exception is the silversword plant, which we have the great pleasure to see. This plant occurs no where else in the world. It lives 5 to 50 years, and blooms once in its life, then dies. To our fantastic good fortune, many are blooming for our ride.

After the ride, we visit the northwest Maui coast, where we find very rough waves and rocky beaches. We observe Nakalele Blowhole, which is the most impressive blowhole we see on the islands, given the vertical height it is pumping up to. We visit a few stunning Maui beaches. The most attractive is Kaanapali Beach, a beach so pretty and romantic that a couple is getting married there when we arrive.

We eat dinner in Lahina, a wonderful, funky, walkable, traditional town on the west Maui coast. The town contains Front Street, which represents Maui's version of the bustling, festive Duval Street/Key West scene in Florida. We dine at Maui Brews, which serves Kona draft beer. I order the "volcanic-spiced" ahi fish dish, which is simply DELICIOUS.

Overall, we drive about 190 miles on our first day on Maui.

Our second day at Maui starts at 6 a.m. to meet our Mike Severns dive boat for a dive out at the most popular and dramatic dive in Maui—Molokini Crater, a marine and bird sanctuary. The "tuff" crater rim emerges offshore from Maui, and the volcanic mountain is mostly under water (photo at right). There are several dive sites both inside and outside the crater. Our dive is The Back Wall outside of the crater, which is said to be the preferred place to dive the crater. The very clear water—which normally ranges from 100 to 180 feet— was deceiving, since even at our maximum depth of 75 feet, looking up to the surface during the dive creates the impression that we are not very far from the surface. On the day we dive, the vis is a staggering 160 feet.

The dive is enjoyable and impressive. Our dive master finds a red and black speckled octopus sitting atop a ledge, and draws the creature out by dangling a fishing lure above its head. The octopus leaps up and grabs the lure with its tentacles, allowing the master to playfully drag the octopus for a few feet.

Our second dive is near the coastline at St. Anthony's Wreck. While the wreck is somewhat interesting, with huge green sea turtles resting on its deck, it was a comparatively mediocre Hawaii dive for us. Next to the wreck lies enormous racks full of old car tires, sunk here to provide reef and fish habitat, and we swim amongst the tires during our dive.

Overall, we find the Mike Severns Dive operation to be exceptional. They provide very thorough, lengthy safety briefings, and lots of details about what sort of marine life (and marine life behavior) to expect during the dive.

Next, we check out Oneuli Beach, which is an extremely picturesque black sand beach that gets little use—a secluded, hidden gem (photo at left). From there, we discover the hidden, little-known Secret Cove, which has a very intimate, cute, lovely beach tucked into a tiny cove. Indeed, it is so nice that we understand that couples often marry there.

Again, we return to Lahina for dinner. This time, it is Lucarelli's Hop Tomato & Brewery. Because it is a brewery, I am "forced" by lust to order one of their homemade liquid delicacies. I sample their Dark Porter Ale, and am extremely impressed. A very good beer. Their food is not bad, either.

Overall, we drive about 70 miles on our second day on Maui.

Our third day features one of the main events on Maui: The extremely popular "Road to Hana" (or "The Hana Highway"). We start out at 6:30 a.m. to beat the infamous tourist train of bumper-to-bumper rental cars, tour buses, and vans (on average, 1,500 to 2,000 vehicles drive the road each day).

First stop is an almost never-visited the 200-foot Lower Puokokamoa Falls, which most tourists just wiz by on the highway above it. Our Doughty guide recommends we stop to see this often-missed falls, take a short trail hike, and enjoy this impressive gateway falls for the Hana Highway.

At Waikani Falls (also known as "3 Bears"), we are instructed to take a path that leads down from the side of a bridge to the valley below the falls. The first step or two is ugly: very steep, large, and treacherous, but we manage without incident. Upon arriving at the pool for these falls, we are treated to a delightful triple falls, and I swim out to the falls in the chilly water (photo at right).

Makapipi Falls is a peculiar falls in the sense that you look at it by peering over the highway bridge railing. The falls is directly beneath you under the bridge.

The next outstanding find we make, courtesy of our guidebook, is the 2.5-mile Nahiku Road. This road is the most lush, fragrant, flower-filled road we see in all of Hawaii. (Which reminds me: we noticed a very sweet, tropical, flowery fragrance on many of our Hawaii hikes, due to the tropical flowers and fruits.) It comes as no surprise to us that the ex-Beatle, George Harrison, owns (or did own) a house on Nahiku road. The road terminates at picturesque Waiohue Bay. There, we watch a family of porpoises cruising for food, which causes, at one point, a spinner dolphin to leap into the air as they glide by. At this bay, Maureen frolicks in a small artesian waterfall-fed pool sitting next to the bay. It was a very idyllic setting.

Blue Pool is extremely impressive. The falls that feed the pool, and the pool itself, are only a few short feet from the surf of the ocean. Again, Maureen and I swim out to the falls across the falls pool.

Just down the road is Wai'anapanapa State Park ("W" State Park for those of us without a doctorate in linguistics). This park is one of the most gorgeous, picturesque parks I've ever seen. I shoot a roll of film very quickly here, since the views are so spectacular every time I turned around. The jet-black lava rock at the shores very dramatically bring out the vibrant, deep blue, glistening waters in the coves of the park (photo at left). The water is therefore glistens exceptionally. Off to the side of the main path into the park is a very nice, 100-foot wide black sand beach, which sits next to a neat little lava tube which opens at the back of the beach and at the other end at the surf.

Venus (Waioka) Pool is the scene of some daring cliff diving by Maureen and I. The pool is very attractive in its setting next to the sea. While there, we observe what appears to be local teens leaping off cliffs next to the pool. Since the reports from these daring leapers is that the pool is plenty deep, I spend about 20 minutes working up the courage to mount the "smaller" 30-foot jump point. It looks very scary from this comparatively modest height when I look down to the water. Summoning my courage, because I was still not convinced that the small, volcanic pool was deep enough, I throw caution to the wind and LEAP INTO OBLIVION (photo at right). Quite an adrenaline rush on the way down, and at that height, it takes a LONG 10 seconds before you reach the water. I goad Maureen into following suit, and she very impressively does so.

Getting back to safe, tourist activity, we return to Hana Highway and come to one of the best hikes on Maui—Pipiwai Trail. A fabulous, 2-mile trail with a 650-foot elevation gain. A dramatic falls is found along the way—Makahiku. Next up was the hike to Infinity Pool, which is the pool of water at the top of, behind and right at the precipice of these 200-foot falls. At the back of Infinity Pool, when you look toward the falls, the Pool seems to stretch out to "infinity," since there is no lip at the falls and the horizon is the Pacific Ocean. Tentatively, I enter the pool (photo below left), having read in the guidebook that this is something that can be done carefully, without being swept over the falls. And after all, I have all the courage I need, now that I was "Dom, the Venus Pool Cliff Jumper." It is extremely harrowing, having gazed at these very, very tall falls a few moments earlier. Would I be able to resist a strong current of water rushing over the falls? If not, it would be an abrupt, horrifying, ugly death...

Behind the Infinity Pool and falls is a very attractive canyon, whose stream is relatively narrow. We swim upstream into the canyon, seeking a glimpse of an upstream falls. Upstream, the walls are sheer and about 70 feet tall. Very dramatic and intimate.

We hike upslope on the trail, seeing several impressive waterfalls along the way. At one point, the trail leads through a very dense, spooky, quiet, dark tunnel of bamboo trees. Many of the bamboo have enormous trunks.

The reward at the end of the hike is the incredible, 400-foot Waimoku Falls (in the photo below right, you can barely make out Maureen standing at the base of the falls).

We finish the day by dining at a very good, funky seafood restaurant in a funky, colorful, walkable, alternative culture gateway to Hana town known as Paia.

The Road to Hana is a demanding road to drive. Every mile, the Hana Highway has a number of bridges crossing a creek or valley. Most of the bridges are one lane, which requires one side to yield to the other side (first to arrive at the bridge has the right-of-way). In a way, these can be called "give way" bridges. The Road to Hana is 50 miles of nearly continuous hairpin turns (many with narrow lanes and rock cliffs jutting out into). One estimate is that there are 600 turns. Many of these turns are so sharp and narrow that there are signs advising motorists to blow their horn before taking the turn. For the 50 miles, the road is such that 15 to 20 mph is your top maximum speed.

Often, this exacting road is too challenging for many drivers, who demonstrate their lack of skills, courage, or both by driving 5 to 10 miles per hour. I often jokingly refer to myself as "Mario Andretti" since I am Italian and have little patience for driving incompetence and timidity. On Hana Highway, these ultra slow drivers seemed to be around every turn. This elicits in me a number of muttered, flustered comments such as "Oh, great! We're behind [a slowpoke] again!" Then, when I would finally manage to pass the incompetent loafer, I would bid the driver farewell by shouting to Maureen: "Good Riddance!"

We find that on Maui, difference between the hot, arid, dusty Haleakala Crater area and the Hana Highway could not be more stark. Hana is always wet, and lush. It turns out that our early-morning strategy was a good one. We see few sightseers early on, and by mid-day, we are off frolicking on trails and waterfalls, and do not return to the highway until the sun is setting and the tourists have vanished.

Overall, we drive about 150 miles on our third day on Maui.

We hop an inter-island Aloha Airlines flight from Maui to our final Hawaiian Island destination: Kauai, the Garden Island.

Total Days on Maui: 3

Total Miles Driven on Maui: 410 miles

Oahu

Big Island

Kauai

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