Maui Day 3

On Monday, I attended the conference all morning. There were actually some interesting talks and I sat with Mike, which allowed me to chat to him quietly during the conference and discuss (or joke about) the science. After eating lunch at the conference, we met Bindi back at the hotel and packed up the car to drive out to the Haleakala National Park, wherein we would see the Haleakala volcano!
The drive up to the top of the volcano takes about 2 hours, because the road is very zig-zaggy - there are probably about 50 switchbacks that you must traverse on the way up and down. Add to that an hour drive from our hotel to the base of the volcano and you get a pretty long drive there and back. We started around 1pm and arrived at the top around 3:30pm. Before hitting the park, we saw some interesting sites on the way.
Neat trees beside the road:Cactus forest:Large cacti up close - they are taller than I am!On the way up, before entering the park, we took some scenic pictures of the landscape below us. Looking towards the north coast and Kahului:Most of our drive up the volcano was actually spent inside clouds, since we didn't choose a particularly sunny day to head to the top. However, it was December and there were some sort of clouds around every day, so I doubt we would have seen much more on another day anyway.Halfway up to the 10,000 foot peak, we stopped at the Visitor's Information Centre. I bought a magnet and a deck of cards. Bindi took some pictures of the island below us (which didn't really turn out so I didn't include them here) and took one of me eating chips while I waited for her:Another half hour or so later and we were at the top!! We couldn't go all the way to the top, actually, because the road and trail were closed. However, we took a lot of neat pictures from where we could get to, anyway. Here's me at the top, by the rail:Looking out over the clouds at the volcanic rock:The observatory at the top of the mountain:Here's looking down at the volcano crater:While at first I thought the crater must have been caused by a volcanic explosion, I learned from the information booklet given us that the "crater" is actually a valley, caused by wind and rain erosion over time. Inside the valley are a number of cindercones, the sites where volcanic activity has occurred in the past (Haleakala is dormant now) and where new material is deposited on the mountain. Currently, the rate of erosion is faster than the rate of deposition, so the valley slowly gets bigger with time. You can see some of the cindercones below:Here I am, beside the volcano:Here's another picture of the moonscape you find at the top:It's very cold up there, and it's very dry too - you can tell right away how dry it is. As well, both Bindi and I started to feel funny from the altitude after being up there awhile! We went from sea level alllllll the way up to 10,000 feet over 3 hours time! That's a big elevation gain!
After awhile, we headed back down the volcano, stopping at one more viewpoint on the way, where I snapped this neat picture of clouds rolling up and over the side of the valley:I also took this neat one of Bindi standing on some rocks. It looks like she's on the edge of a cliff! (But she's not!):The drive down was exactly the same as the way up, but faster since it was downhill and all. We stopped on the way down in this neat forest of eucalyptus trees, which smelled fantastic and fresh. We tried to take some pictures but they all looked pretty poor, since it was dusk by then. We did, however, manage to catch the sun setting while partway down the mountain, snagging us some beautiful pictures like the one below:After returning to lower ground, we stopped in a place called Paia for dinner, before returning to our hotel and hitting the hay.