Air Maui, Complete Island Flight - Tom Barefoot's Tours
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The flight today began with a climb up the slopes of Haleakala to the crater. We moved along the craters rim to the Kaupo gap where we descended down along the massive ravine until we saw an enormous waterfall named "Keyhole". From here we worked our way west in a counter clockwise manner around the coastline of Maui to Kipahulu where we could clearly see what was formerly referred to as the "Seven Sacred Pools" until it was officially renamed "The Pools of Oheo" by the National Park Service. From here we continued over the Hana area where we could see vast rain forests going up the mountain as well as the black sand beaches dotting the coastline below. As we got closer to Haiku the jungle began to thin into sugar cane fields and we moved over to the West Maui Mountains where we went up into some of the valleys for a closer look. One of these valleys was the Waihe'e Valley where there is a cluster of waterfalls called the "Wall of Tears". This is a place where the valley dead ends and has waterfalls that come straight out of the cliffs that are fed from subterranean aquifers that are created from lava tubes inside the ancient volcanic flow. This trip really was a whirlwind tour of Maui, to be able to see what we saw in an hour without a helicopter or a plane would literally take a lifetime. -Jake Barefoot
