Haleakala MTB Ride

I flew to Maui on Friday afternoon, Sept. 28. Taryn and Matt met me at the airport and we went back to the condo. They had adjusted to HST (Hawaii Standard Time) by then so we hung out during the evening and made some plans for the ride in the morning.

By 11:15 AM we had driven to the summit of Haleakala and weather was stunning, about 55 and sunny. We were pleasantly surprised at the gate when they told us it was National Parks and Lands Day and it was the one day of the year that there was no admission fee to the parks. We enjoyed the views on the way up the volcano and marveled at the quick temperature change as we gained elevation. From the summit, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea (each near 14,ooo feet) are visible on the Big Island.
We geared up for our descent of the Skyline trail, but with weather like that, Matt and I were on the bikes quickly and headed down the volcano. The first section looks like Mars with space stations scattered around the summit area. What follows is a lava desert with tennis to golf ball-sized lava rock which loves to scatter from bike wheels and leave you in an uncontrolled skid down the volcano.

The views are unbeatable when you're about 4000 feet above the clouds. If you don't pay attention to the trail, vertigo grips you because riding a mountain bike DOWNWARD toward the clouds is just not something you experience too often.

After finishing the nasty lava rock section, the surface improves to the equivalent of a dirt road so 25-30 mph was not out of the question. We cruised down at a pretty good clip, stopping occasionally for pictures. We tried the helmet-cam, but the results weren't great.

At about halfway, the trail continues as singletrack into Polipoli State Park forest that was beautiful two years ago, but was now a blackened mess, the trees scarred and uprooted by fire, underbrush all but destroyed. The trail was much tougher than I remembered, probably because erosion had taken its toll and the root system began to die from the fire. We passed a large cinder cone and snapped some pictures in this surreal world. Fog crept in as we continued to descend, but the forest improved as the fire had not reached this far. Below is a picture of me by one of the lava vents on the trail.

Soon we reached improved dirt road and continued our ride. At times visiblity was less than 10 feet (due to the fog/clouds) and this continued even when we reached paved road.

We still felt it was prudent to pass slow-moving cars on a winding 1 1/2 lane road in the fog with poor visibility...well maybe not. Matt lit up his tires once when a truck surprised us around a bend. I could actually smell the burning rubber from the tread he left on the road. I wasn't without fault on the ride as I took a controlled spill on the obnoxious lava rock, but no blood loss. We made it to the bottom safely where me met Taryn and Monica with the Jeep. All told, it was 7000 ft. of descent over 16 miles!

We headed to Pai'a and stopped at the wine/beer store so I could pick up a few goodies to take back to Kauai. The selection was about 3-4 times as large as any place on Kauai, so I was excited and purchased a case and some 22s. Thanks to the Dreyer/Elliot families for taking me to the beer store on their vacation time.

Big bonus: for dinner, we settled on Maui Brewing Company, so we got to sample a variety of their excellent brews including a seasonal imperial IPA. Delicious.

The next day, the flight back was very pleasant, although we got to the airport only 40 min. before departure. Thank God for kiosk check-in and the the airport porters. 10 min. later I was getting coffee and an hour later I was finishing it in my exit row seat as we landed. All in all, it was a pretty sweet weekend excursion.