We just completed the Haleakala National Park crater hike on Maui. The summit of this volcano tops out at just over 10,000 feet. That is pretty impressive considering sea level is only a few miles away! Not many places can make that claim.

We did the trek “backwards” from the typical route. We went down the easier side into the crater and up the harder, longer side. The first day we got a late start and hiked down into the crater just before sunset. We passed the fence Ashley had worked hard to put up almost 10 years ago when she was 16! She spent a month living in a tent at the ranger’s station with a non-profit organization called Student Conservation Association (SCA). While she was there they built stretch of fence 8,500 ft up the crater to keep out the wild hogs. Ashley said that one hog can uproot one square mile each day, destroying habitats for alot of animals. It was special for me to get to see what she had talked so much about and for her to see it again years later. We then camped at the Holua campsite the first night. In the crater, there are no sounds heard from the outside world and no real residual light, so it is perfectly quiet and dark. Needless to say, the stars were absolutely amazing to see at night. Even though it is Hawaii, we were still around 7,000 feet in elevation on the crater floor, so the nights dropped to the low 40′s. 

The next morning, we got a relaxed start around 9am, walking through old lava flows and through moonscape terrain. Finally, we arrived on the other side of the crater, which is on the lush rainforest side of the island. The campsite here, Paliku, is very green and surround by steep crater walls, covered in vegetation, with an open gap on the other side overlooking clouds. You would see the ocean if the skies are perfectly clear, but due to cloud conditions, you usually will see the tops of the clouds. 

After a very chilly night, we got an early start for an 11 mile day through more lava slides and through amazing extraterrestrial-like landscapes. Huge craters rise up on all sides of you and the colors mixed in the volcanic ash are amazing. We ended the day by hiking up the sliding sands trail, which most people hike down… for good reason. The trail is very soft (all volcanic ash) and fairly steep and long. It was a blast. 

We met quite a few nice couples on the trail, including one couple that offered us a place to stay and to show us around if we wanted to check out the University of Oregon in Eugene (we are looking at it as a possibility for graduate school). Others were great to share trail stories with. One couple we stopped to chat with was from Hawaii and just spending one night in the crater. We didn’t even exchange names with them, not thinking we would ever see them again. We were wrong.

We finished the day by hitch hiking down to a lower public campsite where we stayed our last night on Maui. This morning (Tuesday) we hitch hiked over 50 miles down from the crater into Paia to eat breakfast and then on to Haiku to our friend’s house to get our stuff.

Random Karma Story——

On the way back to Paia to grab lunch before our flight, we decided to hitch hike again because our friend’s house was about 6 miles away from the town of Paia. We started walking along his neighborhood road and a huge blue truck stopped to pick us up. As we were walking up to the truck bed the passenger asked us if we enjoyed our hike in Haleakala (we were 50 miles away from the crater now and all cleaned up with beach gear on). To our shock, it was one of the hikers we ran into in the crater and chatted with for about 20 min randomly in the crater (I know, many of you could never imagine me, Ashley, stopping to talk to strangers for that long). We then found out that his name is Sam and he had just gotten off work and told the driver to pick us up because he recognized us. To make matters even better, as we chatted we realized that he knew our couchsurfing host Tim. Small world…and island. Ok, back to Jason’s story of our adventure:)

As I was saying…we had hitched, eaten breakfast, and made it to Tim’s place in two hours! That has to be some kind of record. The reverse was done on the way out for lunch, then to Borders in Maui’s capitol, Kahului to wait for our flight. All in all, it was a 100 + mile day of hitch-hiking! Lots of nice people in Hawaii : )

-Jason with guest writer Ashley

Aloha folks! We just wanted to let everyone know that we are doing great and LOVING Hawaii. We will quickly highlight what we have been up to and what we are planing to do. We have already been here for 16 days and our time is quickly coming to an end. 3 islands, 4 flights, 1 tropical depression, 3 couchsurfers and only 3 days of car rentals, we have had a blast.

Day 1-4 Oahu with Winlee and Hanu-We stayed with our college friend and her roomies. They took us on the best tour of Oahu, stopping at all the best places to eat and snorkel. We even drank Kava Kava with a buff native. It’s a drink made from the root of a plant and it has many medicinal purposes. It really made my tongue numb! After a few days on Oahu, we were off to Kauai for our anniversary.

Days 5-13 Kauai

We flew to Kauai (a 20 min. flight) and checked into our one splurge this trip. We pricelined a 5 star hotel back in April for our 2 year anniversary. We were so excited for an actual bed and pillows and at the Sheraton no less! We had our dress clothes from the thrift store ready to go for our first night in luxury and our big sushi dinner. We checked in and got upgraded (yay!) and then to our total surprise and shock, there was a gift waiting for us at the desk. My parents had gotten us a couples massage and I almost started crying at the front desk. I guess you can say I miss my parents just a little. We def. got some weird looks from the bellhop as he took our huge backpacks up to our room! But when we got to our amazing room, we found chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us, also from my parents. Needless to say it was a sweet start to our day! We relaxed by the pool and ocean, swam and took the best nap ever! Dinner was also a highlight at the islands best sushi place. We didn’t want to leave the next day, but there was a trail to be hiked.

The next day we drove to Waimao canyon and spent the morning exploring the south side of the island. We set up our tent beachside at a public park. For only $6 night, you can sleep next to the ocean. Not a bad deal. We got up early and drove to the northside of the island to our next campsite closer to the Kalalau trail. We had to return the car so after Jason dropped me off at our campsite, he drove 45 min. back to the car rental agency and then caught the bus up to our campsite. A small problem happened when Jason got dropped off at the bus station because he was still about 3 miles from our campsite. He thought that he would just hitchhike his way (very safe and common in Hawaii). He was very hesistant to believe me that people hitch all the time in Hawaii but he thought he should be ok. Well, an hour later, Jason was unable to catch a ride and it was raining! He arrived wet and laughing about it though!

The next morning we hitched a ride to town (we got picked up in less than 4 min. haha) and then we hitched to the start of the Kalalua trail. The whole trail is 11 miles with an amazing valley at the 11 mile point where a bunch of hippies live illegally. We started hiking really late and made camp at mile 2, just in time for the sun to set. The hike is famous and the whole thing is along the coast line.We also found out it is the featured trail in a new movie out in theatres right now about a killer on a hiking trail!  We hiked for 4 days and everywhere we looked it was cliffs and ocean. The trail is very scary at some points because it’ only 1-2 foot wide with a 200ft cliff drop so we had to watch our step! But we finished the trail and hitchhiked out back to a public campground, exhausted but not worried since we had a few days planned on the beach.

Day 13-16  Maui

We flew to Maui and had arranged to stay with a person from couchsurfers.org named Tim. He’s a kayak and surf instructor on the island but originally from the mainland, mostly Pensacola FL! For those of you that don’t know, Pensacola is where Jason and I went to college for two years. We took a bus into the little hippie town of Paia and then hitched a ride to Tim’s house. We weren’t even trying to hitch a ride but people here just pull over and insist on giving you one! We have ridden in the back of trucks with alot of dogs but it’s the best way to get around for free. Tim was also hosting 2 other people when we arrived so we were happy to have people to hang out with. We woke up the next morning at 3am and started the hour and a half drive up to the top of Haleakala National Park for the best sunrise in the world. HNP is 10,000ft so you could only imagine the view. It was freezing at the top (40 degrees) but worth every shivering moment. The sunrise was perfect and afterwards we drove down to celebrate life with a big pancake breakfast with our new friends Victor and Tamber. We then met up with Tim to do a kayak tour with the company he works for. We had to pretend we didn’t know him and we made a game of calling him every name but his real one. After a few Barts, Als, Carls, Jim’s….he got what we were doing and stopped correcting us in front of the group! But, the tour was great and we saw and swam with 9 sea turtles. We were less than a foot away! They are endangered so you cannot touch them but we got close enough to see their big beautiful eyes. After a wonderful dinner with our host (cooked by yours truly) we again woke up early to drive the Hana highway. It’s about 50 miles long and has 617 curves with 56 one-lane bridges. It took us 2 hours to do the highway one way. We hiked to a 300ft waterfall and through a bamboo forest when we got to mile 47. We were both tired for the 2 hour, gut wrenching ride home but the view was still worth it. 

Ok, so that’s Hawaii so far. We are heading out on the trail today as soon as our stuff is done drying. We are hiking for 3 days in the crater of Haleakala National Park through the volcano’s crater. Then we are back to Oahu for a few more days with Winlee. Then, it’s official that we are heading to South Korea on the 23rd. Our ticket is set and they are expecting us. We are both giddy and nervous about South Korea.  It feels like it came too quick but we are looking forward to having our own space for a little while, including our own kitchen. -Ash

1) Drinking from the tap without fear for my life

2) Peanut chocolate mixed together in the heavenly form of Reeses 

3) Showering with a non-electric shower head-In Peru and Costa Rica they have electric shower heads that run voltage through the water before it hits your head. I know I was taught that water and electricity do NOT mix but for some reason South America defies that. The result-a good shock when you accidently touch the shower head or turn on the water

4) Veggie friendly anything-enough said

5) Bus rides that you don’t fear for your life

6) My running shoes and other runners in general

We are staying with our old college friend Winlee and her girlfriend Hanu. They live in a little valley on Oahu. They have couchsurfers all the time and are great hosts. What’s really special is that we met Winlee at the University of West Florida our freshman year. So she has know Jason and I from the start. She transfered to U of Hawaii her Jr. year and we lost touch for a little while. But thanks to the amazing powers of Facebook, we reconnected about a year ago and now I’m sitting in her cute house. Yesterday we went surfing and got rocked by the waves that really weren’t that big! We both stood up a few times but concluded that we really should take a lesson or two. 

So we are officially here on our “vacation” portion of our trip. We don’t have every day planned at the current moment but there are a few key things on our list. First, we are flying on Tuesday to the island of Kauai to stay one glorious night at the Sheraton for our 2 year anniversary. We pricelined it before we left and got the room for half of what they originally charge. We plan on a sushi dinner and relaxing by the pool. Then we plan on hiking one of the most famous hikes in Kauai which will take us about 3 days total. Its called the Kalalau Trail and supposedly its one of the most beautiful hikes in Hawaii. From there, we want to go to Maui to hike the crater there and then work on an organic farm for a week. After that, we want to head back to Oahu to visit Pearl Harbor. 

So we are just filling our days with good food and friends at the current moment. One glitch has occured, but we have already recovered from it in style. Since we are teaching in South Korea we pre-packed two boxes of professional clothes to be shipped to Hawaii that would then be checked in when we fly there. My amazing parents had the job of shipping these packages before we arrived in HI so they would meet us here. Also in these boxes were clothes packed just for Hawaii like shorts, tank tops, and nicer clothes for the Sheraton, our computer, etc. Well, we went to pick them up at the post office and low and behold, they are not there. Unfortunatley, no one informed my Padre that when you ship parcel post (which is what I told him to do because I looked up the shipping times for parcel post) to HI, it takes an extra two weeks nor did I ever see anything about that while researching. So we were shocked but not stressed. We have clothes with us now but not much warm weathered stuff for a month in Hawaii. So, we did what anyone on a budget would do…we went to the thrift store. An hour later we both emerged with new outfits. Jason actually found kakhi pants which he has a hard time at home doing! I found a cute polka dot dress to wear to our sushi dinner and shorts for everything else. I even found a pair of cute heels to match my dress. So, crisis averted. 

We really feel like we are on vacation here but I find it ironic that we both keep mentioning how much we miss certain things from Peru and Costa Rica, especially the people we have met along the way and the work we know that is waiting for someone to do.-Ash