Haleakala National Park is 1 of the 2 national parks in the state of Hawaii. It is located on the island of Maui and has been sacred to the local native Hawaiian people. The tallest point of Haleakala Summit is at around 10200ft. The summit is accessible by cars, thus it has been an extremely popular place for people to visit during the hour of sun rise. It was so popular that the national park had to implement a reservation system for people entering the park between 3AM-7AM to prevent the traffic.
We were lucky enough to get the reservation when we visited the Maui. There were about 75 reservation spots available every day. We left the hotel from Wailea around 2:30AM in the morning since it would take more than 1.5 hours to get to the top. When we got to the entrance of Haleakala National Park, there were rangers there checking our name for the reservation. We were quite surprised to see the rangers there so early in the morning.
We got to the summit by 4AM in the morning. There were already few cars there. When we got out of the car, it was quite cold but not at freezing point yet. We walked up the stairs and we could see the Haleakala Observatory on the far side. We could also see Big Island on the other side of the ocean. The Milkyway was quite dim, but we could see it.
After enjoying the stars outside for 10 minutes, we headed back to the car and drove back to the visitor center. The visitor center has the best view of the sun rise. It was only 4:30AM at this point, thus we sat in the car to wait for the sun rise hour to come. By 5AM, there were tour bus arriving with lot of people. We figured that we should get out to get a good spot. Thus we headed over to the viewing deck when it was still an hour away from sun rise. The night was cold, but luckily it was not windy.
By 6:30AM, the sun started to rise above the cloud. There were native Hawaiian people from the bus tour starting to sing the native song. It was pretty cool. After about 10 minutes, most people that came with the tour bus were starting to leave.
We took a little hike around the area and headed all the way to the top of the hill beside the visitor center. This place has an amazing view of the crater. Maybe we should have came here to view the sun rise. From here, we could see the big crater down below and have a great panorama view of the entire area.
We later also headed over to the summit again. The place definitely looked different than what it was a night. We could also see the West side of Maui island. It was really cool to be at the highest point of the island.
As we headed back down, we also stopped by the view point of Kalahaku Overlook. It has the view of the backside of the crater. The view from here was not as spectacular as the overlook at the top however.
Overall, we loved visiting Haleakala National Park. We did not do much hike here, but it was definitely a different experience. It was also our first time seeing an observatory this close. It was probably inactive when we were there, but it was still awesome to see it. Haleakala National Park is definitely a must visit place when visiting Maui.
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