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MAUI, HAWAII
Lower down, the slopes of Haleakala are
swathed in lush rain forest and loud with
birdsong. Not here, close to the volcano’s
10,023-foot (3,055 m) summit. Here, below
the rim, in the vast bowl of Haleakala’s
“crater,” there is only ash, dust, lava, and the
sound of the wind—a “workshop of nature
still cluttered with the raw beginnings of
world building,” in the words of writer Jack
London, who in 1907 ventured into this rocky
maw and its “jagged crests and spiracles of
fantastic shape.”
DON’T MISS
Haleakala’s summit area is one of the best places in
the world to view the night sky. Book a bed with the
National Park Service in one of its three crater cabins
and spend the night stargazing.
Horseback riders (right) trek down Sliding Sands
Trail. The Haleakala silversword (above), is a distinc-
tive local icon.
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S TA R K & W I L D
haleakala
crater