Last day on Maui

The night before the last day on Maui we came back to our home stay and ate some hotdogs.  We were beat from that days activities that most of us were really tired. 

In the morning I woke up so sore.  I woke up before the sun so I decided to head down to a secret brackish water pool to take some sun rise shots.  As I was getting ready the rest of the group over heard me talking to Katie that I was going to take some pictures so they got ready quickly.  The plan was to beat the sun and try to take some pictures with the sky bright and orange.  Here's how it turned out...

Secret swim hole at sunrise

A little further out waves were crashing on some rocks.

 Unreal view of the sunrise

They should have a HRS for hiking and not only for ocean places.

After watching the sunrise from the pond we checked out early from our home stay and slowly made our way back to Kahului via Hana Highway.  Our next stop was Hamoa beach to get some waves in.  Hamoa beach is a nice black sand beach in Hana town.  I jumped into the shore break with my Gopro and snapped some pictures.

 

There aren't any showers here but the waves are nice.

I was sitting on a sand bar and waves just kept coming!


Look at the clarity of the water.



Behind the barrel shot

Of course waves closed down on me. 

After spending an hour in some good waves we left the beach en route to find Kaihalulu beach.  We couldn't find this illusive beach but we did find another red sand beach.  The beach was small but the peninsula where it was located was also where Queen Ka'ahumanu was born. 

There was a super small strip of red sand next to Hana Bay.


Katie and I stumbled upon Queen Ka'ahumanu's plaque.

After driving around trying to look for the red sand beach we couldn't find we decided to try the Hana banana bread.  We stopped on the side of the road and picked up banana bread.  It's a must try in Hana.  After the banana bread stand the Katie wanted to check out the largest Heiau in the Hawaiian Islands.  We stopped at Pi'ilanihale. 

 This is the banana bread stand we stopped at.  

 This shop had six different variations of banana bread

 As seen from the road. 

 The admission is $5.00 Kama'aina rate.

We cannot set foot on the structures so we looked at it from afar.  Haleakala in the distance.

Some Kalo.

Some sweet potato. 

They had a canoe hale.

Of course a canoe was in it. 

 On the slopes of Haleakala.

After spending an hour at the Heiau we had two more stops in Hana.  Two falls on the side of Hana Highway. 

One of the falls you have to hike 10 minutes to get to. 

Group picture at Three Bears waterfalls.  Waikani Falls

Kissy picture

A spur of the moment decision came when I wanted to go to Haleakala.  We had a few hours to kill but we still had to grab dinner and check in at the airport.  We got to the top in less than an hour with my awesome driving skills! 

We talked about doing Holua Cabin one day soon.  

Rounding out our trip on top Haleakala

I've always had a special place for Maui in my heart.  It is my favorite island out of all the islands I've visited.  I hope to come back soon and explore more of these waterfalls!

Raw Hawaiian Power

On Sunday we woke up really early to meet our friends Baron, Cory, and Laura.  Cory suggested, when Katie and I were planning this trip, that they would be able to fly up one day to do two hikes with us not in any guide book.  Through internet research, looking at topographic maps, and some word of mouth he figured out two fairly good hikes for the day. 

At 5:30 am I started to cook breakfast.  We had some sausage eggs and toast and the night before some spaghetti to get some energy into our bodies before these two hikes.  We left the house around 6:30 am to meet them at 8 am.  (If you don't know Hana, know that it takes you a while to get to somewhere you want to be because of all the turns and one lane roads.)  Luckily that morning there wasn't too many cars on the road and we ended up waiting for them for a good 45 minutes.  We explored the area a little and tried to find the trail head but it was hard to tell where the trail would start.  We were looking for a waterfall that doesn't flow in the upper regions of the mountain, it only flows near the ocean.  Around 8:15 am Cory's group pulls up and we headed to the trail head together in the cars.

I put on my tabis and crampons and loaded my dry bag with only a camera and one Nalgene bottle.  I carried my tripod on my back and started off on the trail.  After 30 mins of walking through a jungle with muddy feet we made our way down into a stream bed.  When we hit the stream bed Cory pointed out how clear the water is and how many native fish there was in the stream.  It was pretty cool to see the water so clear and the stream so healthy.  In my time hiking in Hawaii I've never seen a stream so clear and teeming with native fish. 

After about an hour of rock hopping up this stream we came around a bend and that's when I saw it.  The waterfall was blasting!  From a distance there was some mist hitting me.  I stood up on a rock and took pictures from afar with the group heading towards this monstrous waterfall.  It was pretty damn amazing.  I got off the rock and quickly made my way to the base of the waterfall with Gopro in hand.  I got to the base and saw that the pool was giant and had lots of waves from the power of the water falling off the cliff.  Another thing I noticed was that the water was blue!  You NEVER see a waterfall this strong and powerful with the pool being blue.  Usually the waterfalls are murky and brown with lots of sediment.  The falls was about 200 ft tall and POWERFUL.  We hung out at the base for a good 30 mins.  I snapped a few shots with DSLR, this by far is/was the hardest waterfall to photograph up close with the exception of Ko'olaupoko Chutes.  The power of the waterfall in the gulch combined with the wind made shooting a long exposure futile with drops of water always falling on the lens.  Cory and Baron brought some inner tubes to float around at a secondary pool. 

On our way out near the ocean we explored the coast line a little.  The coast had black rocks instead of sand.  We looked in a cave and the cave didn't go too far back.  After the coastline we went back to the cars and had to jet to our next hike. 

The waterfall a little downstream looks small.


The power of this waterfall can't be captured by camera, seeing it in person is totally different.


Giving you some perspective on how big this waterfall is. 

The stream above it is dry.  You'd never think there was a waterfall like this. 



It was hard to shoot.  Water drops all over the lens, this was the first picture in the set of pictures I took. 


If you stand a little further back it's a little more manageable.  There are still drops on the lens though. 



Photo by Cory



The cave we decided to check out near the coast line after the hike. 

Raw Hawaiian Power from Ryan Chang on Vimeo.