We went out for dinner after Mass on Saturday night, discussing a wild hair idea to revisist Haleakala early Sunday morning – we were hoping to catch the north side of the mountain without cloud cover so we could see the views we had missed when completing our hike through the crater in a rain cloud, plus there were some short trails to crater overlooks that we also wanted to check out. So, Sunday morning found us rising early again to make the oh-dark-thirty drive up the volcano for the third time this trip. Since the Halemauu trailhead is further down the mountain than the summit, our drive was 20 minutes shorter, and we didn’t feel compelled to get there pre-sunrise like on our earlier visits – still, we arrived at the trailhead right at 6am, met with beautiful views of the sun that had risen just minutes earlier. Apart from low clouds along the coast to the north and east, the skies were crystal clear, so we quickly got organized and headed east down the Halemauu trail. We didn’t really have a plan for the hike, just a desire to not walk out in the rain again – as we went further down the trail, we could see rain squalls blowing rapidly west along the coastline, and we figured it was just a matter of time before the clouds would start rising around us. The trail descends about 300′ in its first mile, then beginning some short switchbacks and another 300′ drop around the north shoulder of the west rim to the top of a steep ridge – it is this ridge, the west boundary of Koolau Gap, that we had ascended from the low point of our crater hike. We recalled a point at the eastern extremity of the ridgeline where the steep trail from down below had more or less crested the ridge – in the cloud, of course, we had had no view whatsoever, but we figured there would be a beautiful one from that spot today. We were not at all disappointed – we passed through a very narrow section of the ridgeline, dropping further along the north side of the ridge and rounding that structure to a spectacular view east across the gap, southeast into the heart of the crater, and south along the jagged cliffs of the west rim. It is difficult to overstate the grandeur of the moment. We remember our first trip together to Yosemite many years ago, and how Jane literally lost her breath for an instant at her first view ever of Yosemite Valley – this view has a similar impact. The Haleakala crater was not formed by volcanic action but by erosion, the top of the mountain having collapsed at some point, and large gaps in the rim (Koolau Gap here in the north and Kaupo Gap further southeast) were created by water runoff – we could easily perceive the results of erosion around us in the precipitous cliffs and exposed rock faces, and we could also make out the undulating lava flows that later crept across the crater’s floor. We could make out various sections of our crater hike, noting the meadows near Holua Cabin where we had eaten our lunch – Chris switched to the long 300mm zoom lens and shot photos of some of the landmarks we had made out through the mists. We spent more than half an hour here, watching how the strengthening light changed the landscape around us – the marvelous scenery took on new definition as the sun rose higher, and new rain squalls north down the mountain continued to make their way west as the day warmed. We had thought about continuing down the trail to the crater floor, but decided that the experience had been sufficient as it was – we turned back west up the trail. As we reached the west rim, we found some faint use trails where others had ventured further south along the clifftops – as we did so ourselves, we discovered new viewing angles from the different, higher vantage point, which offered again new perspectives on the scenery. We could see virtually all of the Halemauu trail on the ridge below (at least the sections on the south side of the ridge), and, after a few minutes, we trekked a short distance cross-country through the brush to the trail and followed it back to the car. While we were happy to have had the chance to revisit this trail, we wished Pedro could have been here – this is the lower, greener section of the crater, and it probably offers many interesting features for the geologist. Perhaps on a future visit, we can do the long crater hike in the reverse direction, taking advantage of the clear early morning skies like today.