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).

Seriously, So Blessed

I found this blog today as I was putzing around online reading people's blogs and jumping from one blog to the next. It is hilarious! My friend Brandi is from Utah, so she has tons of friends and family back in Utah and lots of fun blogs to link to (which is how I found this one). This blog pokes fun at Mormon Stay at Home Mom's, but I can tell you it's not just Mormon Stay at Home Mom's that it applies to, it applies to a much wider audience. Check it out if you haven't seen it before.

Iao Valley

This afternoon I went hiking in Iao Valley. I'd been up into the valley (past the paved visitor's trail) once before. Last time I was up there, Rudy was showing me the trail (the trail is not well marked and there are a lot of side trails) and it was pouring down rain. We couldn't go up the last part because of the rain and mud. Today it was not raining, but the it was pretty hot and really humid the first half.


West Maui Mountains:

The Iao Needle:

I'm heading up this valley:

Iao Needle again:

After hiking a ways you can see that the Iao needle is not really a spire like it appears from the first view.


The trail through a sea of ferns:



A view up further into the valley:




I'm headed towards the bowl you can see at the base of those cliffs. This photo makes it all look closer than it is. It's actually several miles as all of these cliffs mean that you have to walk way around.



Wild raspberries made an excellent snack about halfway up.


After climbing way up, there were awesome views of the mountains all around and the valley I hiked through.


At the base of this mountain, around the corner to the left (out of the picture), is where I started.


The trip up went fine, getting down from the ridge I had climbed up onto was rather interesting. It was an extremely steep, muddy slope. At one point I found myself hanging from a tree when I lost my footing, wondering if I would be taking the express way down! Luckily, I was able to swing back into the hill and get some leverage again. Exciting times! If Eleanor Roosevelt is right and a person should "Do one thing each that scares you," then I believe I have met my quota for the week, because I was terrified coming down that slope :)

The Pali Trail

A couple months ago I hiked the Pali trail, but I forgot to post the photos.


Here's the start of the trail, looking across Papalaua Beach with the island of Lanai in the distance.


Looking down into the water at the reef. It looked a lot better through my polarized sunglasses. Unfortunately, I do not have a polarized lens for my camera :(


Notice the grass and the rocks in the foreground? You'll see more in the next couple photos. People laugh at me when I tell them a lot of Maui looks like Nevada with an ocean, but seriously, don't you think all the brown grass and rock is reminiscent of Nevada?


I live in Kihei, which is on the far side of this bay.

My place is about an inch to the right of the marshland pond/lake you see on the edge of the bay.

Man I Love the Olympics!

I love the Olympics and I look forward to it every other year when it comes around. These games are off to a great start. The opening ceremonies were something else- I especially loved the drummers at the beginning, the Taiji circles and the performers running around the globe. The events this weekend have been great too. Both the Men's and Women's Road Cycling were nail biters the last ten minutes even though the American's weren't in the running for medals at that point. The men's basketball game against China was awesome. Beach volleyball has been good, swimming has been great, synchronized diving was good even if the Americans just missed a medal, and of course, I always love the gymnastics. And I must mention the men's 4 x 100m relay- way to kick France's ass and make them eat their words!

Great job team USA! Keep up the great work, you make us proud!