Jen & Toby versus the volcano

My childhood hatred of hiking is well documented. But, as you’ve probably noticed, I’ve gotten past that — and since we were visiting an island that is 75 percent volcano, we thought we should probably visit said volcano.

haleakala view

But there was no way in Hades that I was going to ride a bike down that thing.

haleakala view

Apparently, many tourists get on a bus at 2 a.m. to ride up to the top of the volcano in the pitch dark, watch the sun rise and then ride bikes all the way down the tiny, winding, scary-in-a-car road. I really can’t think of anything that sounds more horrendous.

toby haleakala jen haleakala

Instead, we drove up in our rental car and hiked around a bit.

jen elevation volcano chicken

There are tons of trails up there, and we didn’t hike them all — that would have taken hours, and the air is pretty thin at 10,000 feet. We also ended up going the last day we were on the island, since we had to wait 18 hours from our last scuba dive, so our time was kinda limited.

haleakala trail

I actually wish we had given ourselves more time. It’s really beautiful there, and I’m sure that seeing the stars and watching the sunset or sunrise up there would be unbelievably gorgeous.

jen haleakala 2 toby shaka

But holding on for dear life to the brakes of a rented bicycle as you barrel down a winding road with no safety rail?

haleakala clouds

You couldn’t pay me enough, y’all.

jen and toby haleakala

 

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