Foiled Again

{The view of the Haleakala summit from the car. Oh, you can't see anything? Neither could we}

Foiled again.  Haleakala totally shut us out for the second time in a row.  Our drive towards the east side of the island was looking stellar; Shaina and I were able to see the top of Haleakala summit as we drove on the Pali.  Then, as we got closer, a huge knot of clouds swarmed towards the mountain, and we began to drive through the rain and clouds towards the top.  We knew before we even got to the park entrance that it was going to be pretty bleak.  We paid our entrance fee and continued to drive to the summit.  We drove upwards through swirling mists and sheets of rain.  We pulled into the summit parking lot, rolled down the car windows, looked around and decided to head back down the mountain.  Neither of us have full rain gear, and neither of us were particularly ambitious enough to even attempt hiking into the crater with less than stellar weather.  Shaina swears to me that she has hiked the Haleakala crater several times in great weather.  I have even seen photos of her expedition last year and there was loads of sunshine in each shining picture of the hikers.  I have come to believe that all of those photos have been meticulously Photoshopped.  After my last two trips to the peaks of Haleakala, I have come to believe that sunshine does not exist up there.  

Defeated, we drove down to Paia and had a pick-me-up lunch at Flatbread Pizza Company--just like our last failed attempt to hike Haleakala.  But this time, we ordered cocktails.  

Unlike our last aborted hike into the crater, I was deeply disappointed that this trip didn't work out.  I was much more anxious and nervous about the entire ordeal while preparing for our last foray.  This time around, I felt so much more confident and prepared for the trek, that I was completely unprepared for the weather to be so nasty.  I had been obsessing over online weather reports from the Haleakala summit, and most everything that I read promised fair enough weather.  I guess with tropical storm Gil brewing (with Henriette roiling behind it, threatening to turn into a full blown hurricane) we should have known that we were going to get denied by Haleakala.  

On our way home after our lunch in Paia, we kept looking back towards Haleakala.  The summit was still completely socked in by ominous, rain laden clouds.  Shaina and I both agreed that although it was disappointing that we backed out of the hike, it was still nice to see that Haleakala was shrouded in rain clouds.  It justified our decision to creep down the mountain with our tails between our legs.  Hiking Haleakala in that kind of weather would have been downright unpleasant...and possibly dangerous.  I really trust Shaina's outdoor (and indoor) intuition, and if she wasn't gung ho about the conditions we saw today, then I was certainly okay with saving Haleakala for another time.  Third time's a charm, right?

Shaina and I will be creating a tradition tonight and, like last time, we will be cooking our camping dinner at home.  We bought a few extras at Mana Foods in Paia to beef up the menu.  We'll be serving salami and cheese as an antipasto, a kale salad and then the pasta that we packed for our cabin dinner.  I'm going to be using the water out of my Camelbak for the cooking water.  Now, what to do with the four peanut butter & jelly sandwiches that I made for lunch?  Perhaps I can cut them up and serve them for dessert.