House of the Sun

These past weeks (5 to be exact), I have been very busy with my Finance class. I haven't had much time to update my blog or to get out and do a whole lot. My time is mostly consumed thinking of balance sheets and cash flows, debt vs. equity, acid test ratio's, Net Present Values, the time value of money and the like. Thus, due to my lack of recent material, I am going to share photo's of Haleakala from February of this year.

Haleakala means House of the Sun in Hawaiian and it is the dormant volcano that forms approximately 75% of the island of Maui. At just over 10,000 ft in elevation the summit of Haleakala is the highest point on Maui. Haleakala's crater is approximately 7 miles long, 2 miles wide and about 2,600 ft deep.

From the summit of Haleakala you can see the Big Island on a clear day. As you can see, Mauna Kea was snow covered.





View from the summit into the crater with the ocean beyond.
As you can see, clouds often surround Haleakala, but many times the summit is still above the clouds.

Start of the trail down into the crater.

As the afternoon wore on, these clouds crept up the side of the crater and then slowly across the floor of the crater- pretty cool to watch.

Not sure what these birds are, but they hide good then run when you get close.

The trail across part of the crater.

The Silver Sword plant which grows only on the slopes of Haleakala and is endangered (not hard to imagine since this is the only place it is found).