Hawaii

November 5-28, 2011

hawaii - november 8

Haleakela Sliding Sands Trail

Today was the big day... our first overnight hiking trip with the kids (or each other for that matter!). And to camp in a crater in Hawaii no less! We prayed that the weather would be good and it was fabulous. The hike would be completed in 2 parts: The first starting today on the summit of Haleakela, taking the Siding Sands trail down into the crater, and crossing the crater floor to get to Holua, our campsite for the night. The second part would be the next day... much shorter distance, but mostly uphill along a switchback trail and up to the parking lot where Rubby had left the van.

The first part of the trail was pretty busy as many day visitors walk down a ways to check out the crater. We didn't really mean to, but we ended up taking a little side tour to one of the mini craters where we had our snack break. Then we continued on down to the crater floor where we had a late lunch. The last stretch was flat across the crater floor, covering a moon-like landscape to get to our campsite. It was a long day of hiking... descending from 2969m to 2215m and hiking 11.5 km in total with Rubby and I carrying all the gear (Rubby had most of the heavy stuff), Sam carrying her own food rations for the day and Christopher having to do a long distance hike on his own for the first time. But we did it. The fact that the drizzle had settled in by night time really didn't matter as we all hit the sack right after supper!

The photos:

[ back ]