Success!

Wednesday 22 February
Today we had a second go at visiting Haleakala National Park, having been enveloped in cloud/fog last time! As we began our climb, we got into cloud lower down than the last time, however we kept on climbing, and successfully came out above the cloud at the summit. We couldn’t see anything further down the mountain, (see extra), and there were still light clouds drifting in and out, but we could see into the “crater” and all its different hues. We stopped at various different viewpoints, and then we took the trail shown in the lower left of my collage. The views were quite breathtaking, and as you can see in the upper right we were even treated to a small rainbow, after about a minute of very fine drizzle. The plant shown in my thumbnail is the very unusual Silversword or Hawaiian Ahinahina. It is unique to the summit of Haleakala and both MaunaKea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island. It grows between 5,000 and 10,000 ft and has thoroughly adapted to its harsh environment. It is characterized by very dense rosettes os spiky leaves. However, the plants most striking feature is its towering blooms that can reach up to 6 feet high, and is adorned with a hundred or more purple flowers. What makes their blooming even more special is that the plants live from 15 to more than 50 years old, but bloom only once, and then die. So given the odds, it’s not surprising that we didn’t see one in bloom, but I did take a picture of one of their information boards showing one in bloom - see extra. The bird shown in my collage is a Chukar, a game bird, introduced from Eurasia, and lives in the high desert plains of North America as well as in Hawaii and New Zealand.
Step count: 13,761