Haleakala

Today was bloody intense. We woke up at 5:30, got ready, and headed out at 6:30. Couple hours drive I slept most of it, to Haleakala. Went to the visitor center, heard a bit about the area (it's an erosional valley from a combination of wind and vulcanism, not a crater), got some suggestions we had already heard from Denny, the ranger was impressed with how prepared we were. “Slow” group went first, about 5 after 9, and “fast” group went second, about 20, 25 after. The hike overall was 11-12 miles, starting downhill, then uphill, then downhill, then finishing out uphill. The hike down was pretty intense, saw some interesting plant patterns. There were some small ones near the top, then nothing for a while, then it got a lot more dense, more abundant, more diverse... I've got more detailed notes I might put up later. It was really interesting to see the change over altitude, though, especially in really short distances. We finally got down to a flat area, walked that a bit, then up the cinder cones – that was hard again – and then down the cinder cone... and then up another cinder cone... Then we saw a hole, kept going. There's some fantastic stuff to see, the colors are absolutely amazing. Not just normal sand, but yellows, reds, browns, some really weird rock formations... lava cools weird. Very tiring, took a few breaks here and there, especially when we found shade.

By the way, forgot to mention. The reason I put “slow” and “fast” in quotes is that the groups rapidly broke down. We mixed and remixed, I was walking with every person of the 20 (David and Sigrid didn't join) at one point or another, as one group sped up or another slowed down. Sometimes I made an effort to stay with a specific person or group, other times I just went at my pace and stuck with people or not, whatever happened. There are some amazing photos of all this, by the by, they'll be up... eventually. Like all the photos, haha. So we took a break at this cabin, ate, drank some more water, got a bathroom break. No potable water there, though, so we couldn't refill our water. Denny told us to take two water bottles. That was distinctly not enough.

So a bit of a break at the cabin, and off we go again, in groups as we please. It's easy going for a bit, my feet felt better, more or less level ground. The path was never really easy, as mixed in with the dirt and sand was always rocks of one size or another, sometimes the path was all rocks, sometimes just a few thrown in as surprises, right when you felt safe. A few stumbles, but I never fell. And then the switchbacks started.

Oh god, the switchbacks.

See, we had to go back UP again. The hike started at about 10K feet, then went down to a minimum of about 6K, and then back up to 8K where the vans picked us up. By the by, this WHOLE time, we're above the clouds. Yeah, we're looking DOWN at clouds, not in a plane, just hiking. It's a really intense image.

So to get back up those two thousand feet, there's a LOT of switchbacks going up the mountain. Heavily vegetated, which was a nice change, but Denny said something about a forest. There was no forest, no plant bigger than a fern or large bush. No trees, which means no canopy cover, which means little shade, except when the switchback happened to block the sun for you – more rare than we might have hoped. Not to mention, going up again, I think the altitude messed with me more here than it did at the start. Sure, I had some headaches, a bit of throbbing, but on this trip back up I almost hyperventilated a few times. Not really happy. Hiked the switchbacks, rested, hiked, rested, tried to figure out where I was on the map, had no idea, waited for Denny, had him show me – not nearly as far as I might have hoped – hiked, rested, you get the idea. The higher I went, the more I pushed myself. Not the best idea, but I wanted to get to the end. At the map break I had used up the last of my water and just wanted to get to the vans where I hoped there'd be water waiting. The switchbacks seemed to be endless, they just kept going and going, and I had to really work on controlling my breathing, but breathing through my nose only helped a lot. I was sitting with Matt, Becky and Caitlin when some hikers passed the other direction and told us we probably had half a mile to go to the parking lot. Well, actually, we saw a sign not too much later that said .7 miles, but still! Less than a mile left to go! Exciting! I jogged a few parts, I was in such a rush to get to the top. I finally, finally reach the cars (we could see them a ways off) and...

No, Sigrid had already given away her water. I got some from someone else, I don't even remember who, when they finally got up there. We started clapping for each person that showed up, most of us were so beat. (A few people didn't consider it difficult, which just made it worse). Finally, FINALLY Denny made it to the top, obviously he had been bringing up the rear to keep track of us all. We get a group picture and drive off.

I sleep most of the ride, wake up to find out we're completely lost and driving IN the airport. We pull into a gas station, fill up, some people grab drinks, we try to follow Denny and lose him, loop, get back to the gas station, call Denny, and find out he's standing in the driveway waving and dancing to signal it to us. Somehow it was straight ahead, he definitely turned, no idea how that happened. Him dancing was pretty hilarious though. So we get in and we're eating at a place called Da Kitchen, local Hawaiian food – real Hawaiian, not touristy stuff. We wait outside for a bit while they get tables together for 22 people, then we get in, get water and island tropical iced tea (the only drink with free refills). I ended up ordering chicken teriyaki, which was DELICIOUS. The tea was a little bitter, but the sugar packets all had “uplifting” (read: saccharine) statements on them, so I started collecting them. Ate my chicken teriyaki, spent a little time trying to practice with Anh's chopsticks, picking up sugar packets. Asked for a set of chopsticks, ate my rice and what was left of my salad (papaya seed dressing is delicious, by the way) with the chopsticks. So, hopefully, I'll be semi-competent in Thailand. Anh assured me it wouldn't make a big difference, but Kai's been nagging me about it for months so I figured it was worth it to impress Kai, even if I don't impress any Thai. Stopped at the store for the last shopping of the trip and came back, were I enjoyed a shower and have spent the rest of the night chilling with people and playing DJ on youtube on my netbook in our condo.

Monday, January 18th roughly 10:45-11:10 PM local time