Again, not much of a hike, but what a way to begin the day. Having risen at 3am the day before to catch the bus to LAX and our flight to Maui, we were exhausted by 9pm Hawaii time and went to bed. We had talked about perhaps getting up just as early again on our first full day on the island and driving up to Haleakala to watch the sunrise, but had dismissed the idea earlier in the evening – we’re going to use the same approach next week anyway when the kids come to join us, so a sleep-in morning sounded pretty good. However, we realized that a 9pm bedtime gave us a good six hours of sleep, making the Haleakala thing a more reasonable plan. So, we woke up at 3am (without an alarm even), had a little local Maui coffee we had bought the night before, and left the condo at 4am for the 90-minute drive up the mountain. It was easy to find our way as everything was well-signed, yet as the road got windier, we got caught up in fairly slow-moving traffic. As we entered Haleakala National Park at 5am and paid our day-use fee, we saw that the sunrise was posted as 5:40am – the ranger confirmed we had a good 30 minutes of driving to do, so now we got stressed out about not making it up in time. The Jeep in front of us was excrutiatingly careful around every turn, and it seemed like an eternity before we finally reached the visitor center parking lot, which was nearly full. We grabbed one of the last spots and quickly half-ran toward the large crowds at the rail along the crater’s rim. There were hundreds of people here, braving the 40-some degree temperature to witness the same event as we intended to experience. To the south, White Hill sits adjacent to the visitor center and is maybe 100′ higher in elevation, and there didn’t seem to be too many people standing atop it – a sign indicated 0.2 miles to the top, so away we went, nearly jogging up the trail to the 9,880+’ summit. It was very cold, and although we warmed quickly as we hurried up the trail, our hands were like ice trying to capture the moment with our cameras. The sunrise process began to unfold immediately – first, a fringe of clouds began to glow, then more of the edges began to burn bright orange. After maybe 5 minutes, we could see the sun itself, and after ten minutes the sun was completely clear of the clouds below. It was remarkable – to the west, we could see Haleakala’s shadow against the marine layer, and we could see the Big Island and its twin volcanoes to the south. We took pictures of another couple from Boston and they took pictures of us – it was sort of a communal thing, all these random people showing up at the precise same moment to share in this daily miracle together. We walked back down the trail after a while and returned to our car, having decided on the way to drive the rest of the way to the summit of Red Hill which, at 10,023′, is the highest point of the Haleakala massif. This was the first time we’ve been above 10,000′ together, Sherman Peak being the highest mountain we’ve hiked and about 40′ shorter. After some more photos and exploring, we backtracked to the parking lot, Chris walking up to the lower west summit of Red Hill while Jane returned to the car to warm up. We were both so glad that we decided to do this on our first day in Maui, not so much for the logistical practicalities involved with the time change but for setting the awesomeness bar so high at the outset of our trip – it was such a magical thing and we can only feel grateful for the blessing of being here at all.