Into Haleakala

      We knew we had to get going to make it down the 1500 feet of switchback trail before dark, but we also had to get supplies and pack up.  Well, we almost made it.

Hiking above the clouds.  We started at 8000 feet.  Four miles later we were at 6500 feet.  Then back up to 7000 feet to our camp site inside the crater.  The cloud layer stayed at around 4000 feet most of the time.  

     I was using my headlamp the last 20 minutes, staggering along the trail through the lava field.  Diana had sprinted ahead, and her headlamp was a beacon for me to follow.  Good thing for her I persevered ... I had the tent!

      It got cold quickly now that the sun was down.  One moment I was sweating out a Tshirt, within minutes of stopping I was adding layers, one every minute it seemed.  We were too worn out to cook dinner, but at least we could look forward to a cup of warm coffee.

      Unless, that is, you bought the wrong kind of fuel canister for the stove you own.  Damn the plumbing!  So we settled for nuts, carrots, Powerade, and lots of grumbling on my part.  I climbed into the tent with freezing fingers and a bad attitude.

     We had a beautiful dawn, and once the the sun hit our spot it warmed up pretty quickly.

     I know we won't get much sympathy from our people back in Ohio, but the ground was frosted and frozen both mornings.  Now we had a new problem.  The couscous and instant rice/cheese/broccoli packs we brought were inedible without a working stove, so the one loaf of bread, three bagels, and peanut butter and jelly that were to be our breakfasts and lunches for the next two days would now have to be dinner too.  Diana looked at my Christmas/New Year's fattened body and said, "And the problem is ... ?"  But we Burt men like to plan ahead, and the calorie count didn't add up.  I knew we'd starve, our sun-bleached skeletons littering the crater floor.  And even worse, no coffee for two days!

       Then, a miracle!  We went for a little walk waiting for the sun to warm things up, and Diana spotted something discarded in the dirt behind the ranger stables.

  

It was rusty, sun faded, and dirty, but I could tell there was plenty of fuel left when I shook it, and the threads fit our stove.  So that's why we're alive now, able to report our trip to you.

      With the sun coming up and the moon sinking beneath the crater rim, we ate breakfast, then left our tent behind for a six hour exploration through the crater.

      A couple cups of hot coffee (instant, but out here, a real treat) makes everything better.

It's not what you think,  There was a nice latrine with a nice view at the campground.  This is lava.

There were parts that looked like the surface of the moon.

This would not be a good place to wander around in the dark.

See Diana, you can die up here without coffee!

This photo is for Doug - it measures about 10 inches.

Those aren't birds of doom, just dust specks on the camera sensor.

Part of the trail

      Four women who had spent the night in the cabin near the campsite had waltzed into our campground that morning from a direction not along any trail.  We asked them where they'd been, and the leader said they'd come through the lava tunnel.  That sounded fun, so we looked for the trail to it during our hike.  We didn't spot it.  It's not on the trail map I bought.  A hiker we met from Alaska (he hadn't really walked there all the way from Anchorage) told us that the trail was almost impossible to find if you didn't have a guide.  That was all the challenge we needed, so on the return to camp we kept a close eye out for any evidence of a side trail.  We spotted a faint side trail over hard lava, mostly a slight wearing of the hard stone.  We followed it for around 100 yards, and came to this:

       There used to be a ladder into the tube, but the NPS removed it some time ago.  Diana went in first, she being the braver one, and helped me down into the tube.

The open maw of the tunnel once we dropped through the roof cave-in.

   

      Lava can flow underground while it's hot.  When the source runs dry, a tunnel is left behind.  This flow is about 4000 years old.  Haleakala is still considered an active volcano, although there haven't been any eruptions for around 200 years.

     

       Typical caves occur in layers of limestone, a very soluble mineral.  All of Hawaii is made of igneous rock.  However, there is calcite in the lava, and it can be dissolved by dripping water.  This closeup of the tunnel roof reveals tiny stalactites.  The drops and white calcite glistened by the light of our headlamps.  Very pretty.

      After over a half hour of working our way through the tunnel, with a couple dead end side branches, we saw the way out.  This cave-in was just before the exit opening on the right of the photo.

  Oops.  Don't tell on us, please.

Dinner at the Crater Cafe

       

        The shadow of the western rim of the crater creeps up this pretty cinder cone, one of dozens inside Haleakala,  They tell us that the whole Manhattan Island could fit inside the volcano.  After exploring for several hours, I believe it's that big.  We met about a dozen other people the whole day we were there.