Standing in the ruins of a Martian world, I felt grateful and privileged. Could there be truly anything more majestic in the world? ‘Vast’ found a new meaning that day.

We stayed the night at a place I found on Airbnb. Located at 3000-4000ft in Kula, it allowed us to drive up the evening before, and spend some time strolling, and acclimatizing at 9000ft. The next morning, we got to the visitor’s center at the summit to pick up our camping permits.

You can pick them up 24 hours in advance, but you can’t do it online. Being the non-peak season, we had no problems. The Rangers made us watch a mandatory video and warned us of a storm headed our way from the Big Island. Although I was disappointed, given my historical bad luck with rain and backpacking, there was no way I was turning around.

As impressed as I was with the upkeep of the park, I was equally annoyed at the errors on their map. The distances for the Keonehe’ehe’e Trail (more popularly known by it’s English name, the Sliding Sands Trail) are incorrect and don’t match the signs on the trail.

I kept trying to trust the map but soon realized that the signs were a safer bet. The map says it is a total of 9.3 miles to Paliku, the signs say 9.8 miles, but in reality it is a little over 10 miles. I used waypoint distancing to be as accurate as I could be and recreated the following map. I hope it will be helpful to you.

We decided to start at Sliding Sands Trail and exit at the Halemau’u trailhead, then hitch a ride from there. We chose this route for two reasons:

1. Climbing out from the Sliding Sands end would mean an ascent of 2000 feet in ~2-2.5 miles, whereas exiting via Halemau’u is an ascent of 1000 feet in ~1.6 miles.
2. Although, the loose gravel-like earth is nice on the feet, it can give you poor footing on the way up and tire you. Halemau’u climb might look scary but the footing is pretty solid.

Sliding Sands Trailhead to Kapalaoa Cabin

No matter what we do, we can’t seem to get an early start on the first day of our hikes. We barely managed to get on the trail by 10:30 a.m. on this one and went pretty slowly at first. I was in awe of the scenery in front of me and it was hard to fight the urge to stop and take in the view every so often. The trekking poles were helpful going down.

I was glad that I brought my rain jacket as it provided some warmth as well. The chilly weather up top gave way to warmer conditions now that we were around 7000 feet.

Once down on the crater floor, you develop a good appreciation for its scale. It felt like I walked forever, but the cinder cones just stood there at the same distance. The earth is eerily flat and empty here. Nothing but the cinnamon soil beneath your feet.

Soon we came upon a cluster of silver swords. Let me put into perspective for you, the strangeness of every living thing, in this mostly dead world. This endangered plant is found in only two places in the world, Haleakala and Mauna Kea. The one that grows on Mauna Kea is a different species, however.

It takes anywhere from 5 to 50 years to mature . It blooms once, and only once, disperses its seeds, and dies. As the stalk dies and shrivels, it turns into a silver sword that awaits its extinction amongst the copper wilderness surrounding it. It has served its purpose and now it must cease to exist. Everything in this environment is so dramatic, and rightfully so.

I thought about this silently as I stared at the beautiful mix of some dead and some alive sliver swords, careful not to disturb them. Then I moved onwards in my humbling journey. There wasn’t much traffic on the trail; the Rangers’ warnings of an approaching storm must have driven some people away.

It was 6 days since I had contracted a gnarly bug in Kauai, but I was nowhere near as sick as that first day on Kalalau Trail. Still, I wasn’t hiking as fast as I would in good health. Nonetheless, we made good time to Kapalaoa cabin which is approximately 5.8 miles out. It seemed like a dreamy little oasis in the middle of a desert. There we had a snack, chilled out on the grass for a bit and then went on our way forward. It is then that we got lost.

Kapalaoa to Paliku Cabin

We lost about 40 to 45 minutes walking back and forth on a false trail, and getting on higher ground to get a visual on where the real trail was. It seems like rain water flows towards lower ground in the form of mini streams, moving the soft dirt and creating false trails (see the one we took, depicted on the map in maroon). Ultimately, we returned to ask the cabin folks for directions. They helped us get back on the trail, which was more on the right, following the contours of the hills behind Kapalaoa, and wasn’t really visible from the cabin, unless you walked about 50 feet.

In less than a quarter mile, the terrain changed dramatically. The nice, soft earth was gone, and now we were going up and down rocks with jagged edges. One mile later, our feet started to kill us, even with good hiking boots on. Little shrubby looking grass and plants were trying to thrive in this aftermath of eons-old volcanic activity.

As we hiked forward, though, the greenery became more prominent and little yellow flowers started to appear. We were surprised to see nene (Hawaii’s state bird) here but it made sense since water and food were more likely to come upon in this area. No other animals or insects live in the crater.

Suddenly the storm that the Rangers warned us about, was now looming in the horizon. We hurried through the last mile or so, after the junction of Halemau’u and Sliding Sands trails. The 0.2 mile trail that ends at Paliku was a muddy mess and very narrow but we were finally at the campsite and it looked like heaven.

Paliku Campsite

We got there between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m. The mid-October sky was starting to get darker and the light drizzle was threatening to turn into a storm. The only spot under the trees was taken by another couple. We found a soft and green patch of damp grass with no shelter from the elements, and set up camp there.

Once set up, we walked to the picnic table in front of the cabin and started cooking dinner. There is a convenient water source close by, but you do have to filter it. The other couple joined us. We offered them some Mexican rice with vegetables and they gave us a taste of the delicious Okinawa sweet potatoes that they had found at the local store. Yummy. It was now pouring.

The cabin was locked and empty and the four of us stared at it in envy. There was mutual agreement on how disappointed we all would be if the people who rented it did not show up, and it went unoccupied for the night while we camped out in the cold rain. After cleaning up, the two of us took a stroll and checked out the rangers’ station. It was empty. A lone tree stood in the field of swaying grass. It was so beautiful, but I couldn’t shake off the miserable dampness piercing through my soul.

As we walked back, the occupants of the cabin arrived. The guy who booked it told us that the only sure way of getting the cabin for the date you want, is to do it 6 months in advance, when booking opens up. He sat at his computer waiting for midnight precisely 6 months ago, and as soon as booking opened, he reserved the cabin. You can reserve cabins here.

There is a pit toilet at the back of the cabin and it was disgusting. In comparison, the one at Kapalaoa seemed so much better. As I walked to the camp and stepped out of my wet shoes and clothes, tears started to roll down my face. I was tired of backpacking in the rain, my fever had returned, and every movement felt like my body was dragging boulders along.

Seeing my broken spirit, my husband held me and told me cheerful stories. I started to smile. I looked at the black, starless void visible through the tent roof, and recorded my daily audio journal entry for the trip. The rain picked up and so did the wind. With no cover from the elements, our tent often shook furiously in the wind and the tent sides were wet, even with the rain fly on. I managed to get some sleep, getting woken up several times by the howling wind.

Eventually, dawn arrived, but the rain was still there. We stepped into our soggy shoes, had some warm breakfast, packed up our tent into our damp backpacks, and began our 10-mile journey out of the crater. By this time, the rain was gone and the sun was starting to break through the clouds. I smiled. It was going to be a good day, after all.

You can read about day 2 and a video of the awesome hike out of the crater here.