On our fifth day in Maui, we left our room while it was still dark and drove up to the top of the volcano Haleakala to see the sunrise. We got the Jeep parked with about ten minutes to spare. Apparently, a hundred or so other people had the same idea. Most of them were tourists like us, a lot hadn't even brought jackets and were wrapped up in beach towels. It was quite chilly up there.
This sunrise was one of the most awesome things we saw in Hawaii. We were almost 10,000 feet in elevation, looking down on the morning clouds covering the east side of the island. At the first glimpse of sun, a native Hawaiian park ranger began a chant to welcome the sun. Wow. As we got more light, you could look west and see the shadow of the volcano over the rest of the island and the ocean.
We went through the small visitor's center and also spoke to a park ranger a little bit. We learned that the birds we saw running through the lava rocks were chukars brought by sportsmen as a game bird to the island. The birds quickly learned that they were safer up higher on the volcano and have pretty much taken over. This was interesting since we have chukars at home and that is actually the name of our minor league baseball team.
Afterwards, I had to drive back down the volcano. Switchbacks are not my favorite thing and neither are packs of bicyclists coasting down said switchbacks and not staying single file. Luckily it was a rather uneventful ride back to the entrance of the state park where Patrick was able to take over.
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