Maui Downhill, Summit - Tom Barefoot's Tours
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Maui Downhill, Summit - Tom Barefoot's Tours
After viewing the sunrise from the Haleakala craters rim we continued to travel up the mountain to the peak of Haleakala at 10,023 feet above the coastline far below. From here you can see much farther out to sea then you can at sea level and Ive heard that on a clear day the visibility of the horizon can be well over a hundred miles away. It is possible to see the Big Island on most days and on a very clear day Oahu has been seen from the Haleakala summit. The channel that stretches between Maui and The Big Island of Hawai'i ,the Alenuiha'ha channel is one of the roughest in the world. The consistent trade winds that come from the East are deflected northward by the massive mountains of the Big Island and accelerated across the Alenuiha'ha channel and into the southern coastline of Maui. This wind causes seas that are extremely rough on a regular basis. To be able to see from one side to the other of this vast channel is an amazing experience. Today the channel was overcast and you couldn't see the ocean. This made it even more special because it made the wind patterns visible. From this high vantage point above the couldline I could see the clouds displaying the East to West wind pattern as vividly as smoke in a wind tunnel, it was quite a way to cap off the sunrise portion of our tourthrough the Haleakala National Park. -Jake Barefoot
