Saturday, November 6, 2010

Sliding Sands Trail

When planning for the trip to Haleakala, I read about some of the trails in the park. I was not sure if I would be able to convince Jeremy to do any hiking though. Once we got there and peered down into the crater of the volcano, we both knew that we needed to go down there are see it firsthand. The trail that leads down into the crater is actually right by the peak where you watch sunrise so since it was convenient we decided to walk over and see what the trail was like. Along the way there was a park ranger standing with binoculars watching over the trail, and he stopped us to ask if we were going on the trail. We said that we were considering it, and his response was, "Not without water and sunscreen you're not!" Well as I said we had decided to walk over and look at the trail first before committing to hiking it. And now I'm sure that he meant well, but we had intended to go get our stuff out of the car if we decided to take the trail. At least it gave us something to joke about!
-
As for the trail we only made it just over a mile before turning back. We were both pretty tired and the thing about this trail is that from the beginning you head pretty steeply down into the crater. So when you decide to turn around and go back, you are climbing back out of the crater. It was pretty exhausting, but again the view (and pictures) made it totally worth the effort. (Not to mention the fact that we had decided to go get Krispy Kreme donuts as a reward for all the craziness we had endured that morning!) On our way out we stopped at an observation lookout which gave another great view of the crater.





















No comments: