Haleakala National Park
National Park #13
We decided to spend Christmas 2021 in Hawaii! It was an epic 13 day vacation. We visited three Hawaiian Islands, both national parks, swam with sea turtles, learned to surf, relaxed on the beach and much more.
But let’s talk about Haleakala National Park.
We visited the Summit Area of Haleakala to do some hiking on Christmas Day. Even though the Visitor’s Center was closed for the holiday we made a quick stop to check things out and put on some warmer clothes; it’s a bit chilly at 7000 feet. While we were there we came across some nene.
We decided to hike Halemau‘u Trail to Rainbow Bridge.
The 1.1 miles down to Rainbow Bridge wasn’t bad. Coming back up was a bit of a different story. Hiking at elevation is no joke! But the views were definitely worth the struggle.
After some lunch, we were feeling a bit better so we decided to drive up to Leleiwi Overlook (about 8800 feet). I highly recommend getting out to check out the view; it’s amazing! A little bit of weather was starting to roll in and it was fun to watch.
We opted not to drive to the summit. None of us had really acclimated to the elevation and ascending another 1200 feet didn’t really seem like the greatest of ideas. So we headed back down the volcano and decided to enjoy the beach a bit more.
Hiking Haleakala was awesome! I’m so glad we were able to visit national park #12 while we were on Maui.