Early in our planning for this vacation on Maui, we had talked about walking through the Haleakala crater, and it sort of became the keystone around which the rest of our trip was built. Because the kids arrived the day before on the 2nd, the 3rd had been the date for this hike ever since we booked the flights. So, it was with much anticipation that we packed packed up most of the kids and the grandbabies for the drive back to Kihei, while Pedro alone joined us for the hike. The plan was to walk eastward on the Sliding Sands trail, angle northeastwards on a cutoff trail across the crater floor, then head northwest up the Halemauu trail to Holua cabin, a permanent structure maintained by the park service near the base of the crater’s west rim. From there, we would hike north to the base of a steep ridge extending eastward from the main west rim structure, then climb out some three miles back to the Halemauu trailhead. One added excursion was to make the 1/2-mile jog north to visit a nearby cinder cone along our Sliding Sands descent – all told, we expected it to be some 12.5 miles, including the cinder cone side trip, with about 3,400′ of elevation loss and another 1,400′ of gain to get out. After watching the sunrise from White Hill, Pedro and Chris shuttled the rental car down the mountain some 30 minutes to our exit trailhead, then returned in the rented minivan that would take the rest of the party back to the condos. That exercise took a good hour, and it was about 7:30am before we finally got started, about a half hour behind schedule – we had wanted to get as early a start as possible to avoid running into rainstorms that often rise over the northern part of the mountain in the afternoon. The air was crisp and cool yet dry and comfortable – while our fleece outwear had been necessary at 5:30 to watch the sunrise, it was no longer needed, and we were in light shells as we made our way into the crater. Our trail descended moderately, steep enough for us to know we were rapidly losing elevation but gentle enough to not pound our knees. What was a little unexpected was the sandiness of the trail surface – horses frequently come down this route, and the soil is pretty well chewed up as a result. While the cushion effect was comfortable, every stride had a slip to it – this got old quickly, so we looked for ways to walk along the edges of the trail that were firmer. We could see the cinder cone below and were looking for what we thought to be the signed junction with its spur trail, yet we had covered something more than the expected 1-1/2 miles to it by the time Chris checked the GPS – we had somehow missed it, probably in a craggy section where we were more entranced by the views to the east than to notice any other trail signs. By this time, we were several hundred feet below the junction, and none of us felt like climbing that far back up, so we voted unanimously to continue the hike, now shortened by a full mile. We could see cloud cover rolling in and out of the crater to the north, and about this time it started to extend southward over our route – the breeze that brought it was nice as the day was warming, although the clouds limited our views somewhat. If there’s one thing we’ve learned during our short time in Maui, it’s how quickly the weather can change, and, sure enough, the clouds dissipated by the time we reached our first major trail junction. What we thought to be grassy meadows from higher up (for we could easily see this green area from the White Hill summit) turned out to be large fields of ferns – they made quite a contrast with adjacent lava field to the north, not just in color but in allegory and metaphor (life and death, etc.). Indeed, as we made the turn northward, it looked as if we were crossing the barrens of Mordor to Mount Doom – so desolate, with virtually nothing growing here, despite the obvious watercourses that, at times, must run with the infrequent but heavy rains. As we crossed the lava field, our attention focused on the first significant climb of the trip, a straightforward ascent of an intermediate ridge, after which we would descend to reach the Halemauu trail on the other side. We knew this climb was coming, but the topo map always looks deceptively easy, and this looked much worse than what the map indicated – of course, it also looked worse than what we actually experienced, as we had a pretty easy time of it, gaining the ridge after a lone switchback near the top. The view back west across the basin was fantastic, alone worthy of the not insignificant effort required thus far – more than 180 degrees of the crater’s south and west rims were in our field of view, and we paused here for a few minutes to drink it all in. We then descended into a shallow, narrow valley to meet our next principal route, the Halemauu trail, which we would follow the rest of the way out. As we gained that trail and began heading north, the clouds returned, this time staying for good – what was at first a list mist that was refreshing eventually became a steady drizzle that lasted pretty much the rest of the hike. We passed a solo hiker headed south (he and a pair of young women we had passed on the initial descent were the only people we’d see in the crater all day – quite a contrast from the hundreds of folks who had watched the sunrise earlier that morning), walked through a beautiful stretch of shallow glens filled with ferns, then crossed a flat to Holua cabin. Just after passing a lava tube next to the trail (a pit about 12′ deep that Jane might have fallen into had Pedro not warned her), the drizzle abated – it was a providential sign that it was time for an extended break and some lunch. We spied several nene in the vicinity, some that were moving around in the brush and some that remained on some rocks nearby – as we ate, the rovers got braver and came up to the picnic table we were sitting on next to the cabin. We sat under cloudy but dry skies for maybe 20 minutes before the sprinkles began again, another sign we interpreted to mean that it was time to go. We had been walking across relatively flat ground the last 2 miles or so, and it came as a little surprising that we began to sharply lose elevation again as we moved away north from the cabin (we lost about 400′ between the cabin and the start of the climb up to the rim). The trail here began to get quite narrow as we passed through meadows that would no doubt be beautiful in the sunshine – they were quite pretty in the rain. Suddenly through the mist appeared a gate across the trail – at last, the climb out would begin. We have found, more often than not, that national park trails are well engineered and well constructed, maintaining reasonable and consistent grades and usually provided with strategically placed rocks to act as steps – this section of the Halemauu trail is no exception as it winds it waysteeply up the ridge toward the crater rim. We quickly gained enough elevation that we could no longer see the bottom of the crater, nor could we see much above us – we were, in effect, walking up a steep trail with sheer exposures while inside a cloud, which perhaps was all the better given that Chris can be a bit acrophobic at times. We were probably only spaced about 30 yards apart as we climbed, and there were several places where we each were on different switchbacks. The rain continued more heavily through this area, although it never got really uncomfortable – the rain was cool enough not to be muggy but not too cold as to make us miserable. Eventually, the switchbacks got longer and further apart, and we began to see signs that we were nearing civilization again. We passed a signed junction with a trail that runs down the west side of the mountain to the main park entrance, so we knew we were officially out of the crater at this point. We passed a young couple coming down with backpacking gear and another couple walking down to an overlook (Chris had found the same one but no view whatsoever was to be had in the clouds), then all of a sudden we could see the parking lot ahead in the drizzle – we had been hoping that our ascent would take us out of the rain at some point, but it was not to be. We didn’t hang around long at the trailhead – Pedro wanted to see the summit proper (we had been there already on our first full day on Maui too), so we drove the 30 minutes up to the summit, Jane waiting in the car while Chris and Pedro wandered around for a bit – we did not breach the clouds on our drive up until just below the summit itself. Despite the rain, this was a great hike – we completed the 11.7 miles in 6-1/2 hours with no ill effects but tired feet, and the scenery was nothing short of spectacular. We were well-prepared and had a fantastic experience because of it.