Haleakala 3-year rendezvous

View of the Haleakala crater from the crest

Dec. 18, 2018:  It's been almost three years since I descended into the maw of Haleakala, and I should have taken my altitude meds before I went this day, but I planned to only walk a little ways. I was saving the meds to take before I went all the way to the bottom for the 2,500-foot descent with my son. This was a warm up and I was planning to start the meds later for the big challenge. That, I think, turned out to be a significant miscalculation.

When I started, I intended to talk only a mile, but it was so easy I pushed myself all the way to split rock, the 1.9 mile mark of the 3.9 mile trek to the floor of the volcano. Enroute, I passed old friends, such at "Turkey Rock," a place that reminded me of Thanksgivings past, as the photo below might suggest.

The formation and landmark I call "Turkey Rock"

A formation I wishfully called Split Rock until I came across the real Split Rock

The nature of the path and some of the terrain 

One of many craters created by wind blown particles

A patch of silverswords

The view from Split Rock. I couldn't identify that trail for certain  on any map.

Afternoon clouds began rolling into the crater.

A photographer I chatted with offered to take my photo and suggested the Hawaiian gesture,

And now for a map to clarify

This topo map from Hiking Project answered many questions for me.

This map of Haleakala's Sliding Sands trail comes from a page in the Hiking Project Web Site. It's a topographical map on 32-foot contours, and that little arrow in the center of the image is right where Split Rock lives. A map provided by the National Park Service shows that the distance from the trail head  to the first trail offshoot from sliding sands is 3.9 miles. People I met along the way told me Split Rock was 1.9 miles in from the trail head, and that's just about halfway, which seems to agree with this map. So I now have pretty good evidence that my hike was 3.8 miles round trip.

The elevations on the map show I descended very close to the 8,562-foot level, and that the trail head is at 9,830 feet, so my descent was very close to 1,268 feet. It took me two hours to make the two-mile ascent out of the crater, or about 1 mile per hour at the 8,500-plus foot level, without altitude meds. I'm satisfied with that pace and the conditions, but I wish I hadn't suffered altitude sickness as a result of this test, because that, and accompanying dehydration, threw me off my game, and I likely won't be going back into the crater before I leave Maui Dec. 30. I had hoped to complete my final "Rainier" for the year.

Satistics for the day:

Distance: 4 miles

Elevation gain: 1,268 feet 

Load: Negligible: Cameras and water.

Statistics, year to date:

Distance: 1505.5 miles

Elevation gain: 64,793 feet; 7,262 feet to fifth Rainier