The West Maui mountains are some of the wettest places on earth, receiving over 400 inches of rain each year. Throughout our trip, we had looked at the rugged peaks maintain an almost constant cloud cover that typically obscured the tops of all but the lowest ridges. Another hike we had wanted to do…
After the easy walk at Iao Valley, we returned to Kihei a little dissatisfied, so, after some lazy time at the condo, we headed back out to walk the other paved trail on our list: the Wailea Boardwalk. Beginning at the south end of Kihei Town, the walk begins with a short stretch of…
One of the places we had wanted to take the boys in their double stroller was the Iao Valley, which we knew had some paved trails – the area is famous for the Iao Needle, a lava pinnacle that towers over the valley just west of Kahului and Wailuku. Well, we never made it…
The kids all left today – it was super that they were able to come for 10 whole days, and we missed them as soon as we left the airport. After doing some errands on the way back to the condo, we decided to walk later in the evening and catch the sunset from somewhere…
It was Jane’s birthday today, so the girls decided to take her out for a mani-pedi after all the kids went snorkeling in the morning and we babysat. We had wanted to hike to Lahaina-Pali trail ever since starting to plan our Maui vacation, so we decided to squeeze it into the already-full day…
The kids were all busy with their various activities this afternoon, so we drove out north of Wailuku to check out some trails on our list. One, the Waihee Valley trail, requires users to get a permit from the current landholder (we’ve since discovered that hiking on this trail has been completely disallowed, unfortunately),…
Early in our planning for this vacation on Maui, we had talked about walking through the Haleakala crater, and it sort of became the keystone around which the rest of our trip was built. Because the kids arrived the day before on the 2nd, the 3rd had been the date for this hike ever…
The kids all came to join us on the 2nd, so, before anyone’s body clock had a chance to adjust to the time zone change, we rustled everyone out of bed at 3am in order to make the sunrise at the top of Haleakala. It was a little less rushed than our first visit…
One of the stops we had bypassed the previous day on our way east was the Waikomoi Ridge trail, a short nature walk that ascends a low ridge south of the main road to a couple of picnic areas – it was described as offering views over a deep canyon to the east and…
After checking out of our hotel and leaving Hana behind, we planned to head back west up the Hana road to Kahanu Garden, located off the main highway down Ulaino Road toward the ocean. The garden is near the end of the road and abuts an enormous temple site – we had seen some…