We intended to spend the day exploring the northwest side of Maui, planning to head up the coast through Lahaina, Kaanapali, and Kapalua. Along the highway southeast of Lahaina is the Olowalu Store, a local landmark, and behind that is a gravel road leading to a cultural preservation site containing ancient petroglyphs. We parked at the store and immediately headed out, through a short alley behind the store under some sort of fruit trees – much fruit had dropped onto the roadway and rotted, so the aroma wasn’t the best. As we turned the corner onto the gravel road, we were passed by a car – we later found it and its occupants at our destination, realizing that our hiking guidebook may have us walking places that are also driveable. Oh well. We continued up the nearly-flat road to a low lava hill with a precipitous north face, and began looking for the glyphs on the exposed rock. They were easy to find – kind of amazing, really, that something so special could be found so innocuously located along a dirt road to someone’s home. A first lower rock wall held dozens of small glyphs – some mixed in among more modern messages of love and aloha – while a short distance beyond a taller rock wall contained even more. There was evidently a viewing platform built along the wall’s base at some point in the past but only its foundations remain today. After snapping several pictures, we retraced our steps to the car, treating ourselves to some small pies at Leoda’s, another popular eatery next door to the Olowalu Store. Typical of what we expect most of our hiking days to be here on Maui, this was a short walk to an incredible destination, to be followed by more of the same.