Maui Adventure - Day 3 - Here Comes the Sun

[Composed 1/3/2026]

Today's adventure was made possible by my wife's dogged persistence. As we were moments from landing in Phoenix airport, Shira logged into recreation.gov and tried to buy tickets for the Haleakala National Park Summit at sunrise. She had been unsuccessful the day before.

Space at the summit is notoriously limited, so tickets go blazingly fast. As a rule, the National park makes tickets available 60, and 2 days out from each date. We failed to get tickets at the 60 day mark as we had not planned our trip, and failed again the day before at the 2 day mark.

And yet, Shira's determination paid off, and as we touched down in PHX, we officially had tickets to watch the sunrise from the summit of Haleakala.

Fast forward to 2am this morning, where we awoke and piled into the car to drive to this exclusive parking lot.

Ascending from sea level to 10,023 feet, I braced myself for the trip. Surely this would be a test of my fear-of-heights. And yet, the test never came. The road switched back and forth up the mountain, but never got especially steep or cliffy. That was a nice surprise. In fact, the entire time we were at the summit my fear of heights never kicked in. I worried about being worried for nothing; classic.

We arrived at the summit parking lot at around 4:40am. There was plenty of space, so we got to breathe a sigh of relief.

Stepping out of the car, I found the surroundings to be positively magical. I was expecting high winds and found the night to be calm. Chilly, but calm. The moon was full, so star gazing was out of the question. But one can easily imagine how spectacular the night sky would be on a moonless night. I snapped photo after photo, trying to capture the magic of the place, but knowing that I was going to fail.

Ultimately, I rejoined Shira in the car where we stayed warm until about 6:15am where we trudged up to the summit and took our position facing east.

We were warned time and time again that viewing the sunrise would be a bitterly cold affair. And the advice wasn't wrong. It felt a bit silly bringing winter gear on a tropical vacation, but it was completely the right thing to do. In fact, I should have packed wind pants and long underwear. At least we had proper hats, gloves, and down jackets. Many of the crowd at the summit were painfully underdressed.

For the next 40 minutes we watched nature's most spectular light show. Slowly at first, and then picking up steam, the light would morph into new colors. Words, photos and a video timelapse just can't do the experience justice. Being above the clouds, with peaks and an island visible in the distance, the scene was beyond extrodinary. It was well worth the 2am start, and Shira's effort to get tickets. The magic of Maui was on full display this morning.

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While I lacked the words to dscribe the sunrise, Mark Twain had no such difficulty. His encounter with Haleakala is quite moving and closes with the following description:

There was little conversation, for the impressive scene overawed speech. I felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world.

While the hush yet brooded, the messengers of the coming resurrection appeared in the East. A growing warmth suffused the horizon, and soon the sun emerged and looked out over the cloud-waste, flinging bars of ruddy light across it, staining its folds and billow-caps with blushes, purpling the shaded troughs between, and glorifying the massy vapor- palaces and cathedrals with a wasteful splendor of all blendings and combinations of rich coloring.

It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think the memory of it will remain with me always.

Well said Sam, well said.

Maui Adventure - Day 2 - Kahakapao Loop Trail - So Many Aliens

My first impression of hiking the Kahakapao Loop Trail in the Makawao Forest Reserve was just how ordinary the hike was. Here we were, 5,000 miles from home on a tropical Hawaiian island, and we were slogging through a wet, deciduous forest in low 60 degree temps. Shira had her umbrella up, and my windbreaker was getting peppered with drizzle. This scene wasn't on any Maui postcards I'd ever seen.

Yet, upon closer inspection, I could tell we were off the mainland. For one thing, no squirrels. In fact, other than a couple of fleeting views of birds, we didn't see any wildlife.

As the hike and rain continued, I noticed an unusual phenomenon among some of the trees: they seemed to have tiny rivers running down them. See this video for what I mean. That's unusual, right?

A bit of research revealed that the trees showing this effect were all eucalyptus, and that the effect is known as stemflow. Eucalyptus trees have a combination of smooth bark and waxy leaves that allows them to pull off this water bending behavior.

At first this seemed like a flaw: wouldn't the tree want to absorb the water versus shed it? In fact, stemflow is a clever way for trees to route water directly to where it's needed most: the base of the tree and ultimately to the roots.

While it's a nice find, there's nothing native about eucalyptus trees. They were introduced to the islands during the 1860s, to provide resources for timber-hungry industry. The first "systematic forest planting [of eucalyptus]" occurred just a mere 10 to 15 miles from our hike, in Ulupalakua. Cool, but not a native to the islands.

As we continued slogging up the trail, I noticed multiple clusters of bright orange fungus and thought surely that must be a native resident.

A Google Lens search suggests that this is likely Favolaschia calocera, aka orange pore fungus, aka orange ping-pong bat. Not only is it native to Madagascar, but it's now considered an invasive species.

Favolaschia calocera R. Heim (Fig. 1) is a classic example of an invasive species in the islands. The bright orange poroid fruiting bodies of this fungus were not seen during the twenty or more years of collecting on each of the major islands, but in the last few years it is often encountered in troops on fallen logs and branches in both alien and native forests on all the major Hawaiian Islands. The spread of this fungus from Madagascar to Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, China and various Pacific islands is well documented (Vizzini et al., 2009).

So pretty, and with a cool name, but definitely not Hawaiian.

The Kahakapao Loop Trail follows an elliptical path, having hikers travel southward up an incline, then return northward on a roughly parallel path. The hike switches back and forth over mountain bike trails, which are no doubt optimized for uphill and downhill riding. I'm not a mountain biker, but I'm sure if I were, this would be a gem of a location.

Near the southernmost point in the hike, we encountered a thicket of exotic-looking plants. While their flowers had mostly bloomed, you could tell that at the right season, this must be quite beautiful.

Google Lens tells me that we came across a patch of Kahali Ginger. The plant certainly looks like what I'd imagine would grow in Hawai'i. And the name sounds Hawaiian, too.

Not only is the plant alien, but it's considered #40 on the list of the world's worst invasive species. Ouch. Even the name is problematic:

H. gardnerianum has also been called kahili ginger due to its similarity to the kāhili feather staffs symbolic of Hawaiian aliʻi. However, many have taken to calling the plant Himalayan ginger given that the species is native to the Himalayas. A Hawaiian name can potentially mislead people to believe it is a native species.

You know that this plant is a significant problem because the Hawaii Invasive Species Council is considering importing natural enemies to tame it. Just think, next time we visit Maui, we could be hearing all about invasive "flies from the genus Merochlorops, large, conspicuous weevils from the genus Metaprodictes, and moth larvae from the genus Artona."

Introducing new species seems like a massive risk, but I suppose doing nothing isn't an option.

About half way down the hill on the return leg of loop, we came across this tropical looking specimen:

Aha, I thought, surely this plant is a native Hawaiian species. Just look at him (or her?)! Reddit's take on these pics is that I'm half right. Apparently, this is a Ti plant, and it was intentionally introduced by the Polynesians that settled the Islands of Hawaii. That means it's both alien, and thoroughly Hawaiian.

Ti, also known as Ki, is one of the 23 plants that were brought by the Polynesians when they voyaged to Hawaii. Collectively known as canoe plants, these plants served as a sort of civilization starter kit; ensuring settlers had a reliable source of food, medicine and tools when arriving at a new destination. Ti's benefits read like a sort of plant Swiss Army Knife.

In ancient times, the Ki served as a material for clothing, rain gear, sandals, roof thatching, dinner plates, ceremonial activities, fishing lures and making okolehao, an alcoholic brew from the ti roots.

The canoe plant strategy helps me appreciate what the Polynesian voyagers accomplished. Where, say, Christopher Columbus's journey was like a moon mission: risky and ground breaking, but ultimately intent on returning home; the Polynesians were more like colonizing Mars. That is, a mostly one way trip, intent on establishing a civilization where one didn't exit. In that context, canoe plants can be seen as a sort of a proto-terraforming project. Amazing. As NASA considers how it might allow humans to thrive on Mars, they are implicitly taking a page out of the Polynesians handbook: the the right plants may make all the difference.

Form the Ti sighting, we made our way back to the car. Here, I chugged a can of Aloha Maid Pass-O-Guava Nectar. Made in Hawaii, this was probably the most native encounter we had all hike.

In the end, Kahakapao Loop Trail was a well marked, easy to follow trail that helped us transition to vacation mode. If you're a mountain biker, you'll no doubt love the trails and seemingly well equipped practice area. For hikers, it checks the box, but there was nothing spectacular about the loop. In short, it was nice, but not a must do.