Hiking Sliding Sands & Halemauu Trails

[syr101]

Has anyone taken this hike and can tell me how they feel the difficulty was. My wife and I run 3 miles every other day so It sounds like this is a hike that is doable. Is there a shuttle or any other mode of transportation that takes you from where it ends to where you start.

[Susan-M]

We did that hike last year ... this is a copy of what I posted about it in a trip report on the Maui Tripadvisor forum ... it's a bit long, but should give you an idea of what to expect.

Tuesday - this was our 'epic hike of the trip' day. When we were up at Haleakala summit on our arrival day we talked to the park ranger about various options for day hikes. She suggested a combination of Sliding Sands and Halemau'u, which starts at the summit visitor's centre and ends at the Halemau'u trailhead - at the parking area about 8 miles down from the summit - an 11.2 mile one way hike that descends from almost 10,000 feet to 7000 and back up to 8000. I thought it was a bit too ambitious, but DH was keen to do it, so after reading a couple of reviews for it, I too developed an interest and felt a little more comfortable in being able to accomplish it.

 

We drove to the Halemau'u trail parking head (arrived at 8 a.m.) and walked over to the 'hiker's pick up' spot. We hadn't been there a minute when a van stopped to pick us up (an employee at one of the satellites) - what luck as we thought we might have a bit of a wait for a ride. We touched base with the ranger at the summit and started our hike at 8:25 knowing that it would take us about 7-8 hours, meaning that we would finish with lots of daylight left. We tried not to overpack, but needed to take all of the water we would need as there's no drinking water along the route (we carried 4 quarts each) plus food and a few pieces of extra clothing.

 

The hike descends on big switchbacks for 4 miles along the Sliding Sands Trail - fairly easy hiking and glad we were going down and not having to hike back up Sliding Sands (we did a small portion of it the week earlier and it's tough going back up in thin air, hiking uphill in sand). The scenery is spectacular and the colours amazing .. seeing the huge cinder cones up close was great.

 

The weather couldn't have been better - clear blue skies, a few high clouds, warm (about 60F) and no wind. After 4 miles we veered off on another trail - still heading downhill, but some uphill portions - towards Holua Cabin. The terrain changed along this trail (black lava - more vegetation - lots of silverswords and flowers) and still the awesome scenery of the whole crater and mountains covered in vegetation - and we could still see up to the summit visitor's centre - a tiny speck by now. Lots of stops for photos, water and food. We had a longer break at the Holua Cabin (no overnighters had arrived there yet so the cabin was still locked up - but there's a picnic table out front.) Met 4 other hikers at that point - but for the most part, we saw very few people on the hike - which was another special part of this hike - being out there in that vast, scenic area pretty much on your own - although if we had had any problems, there wasn't much comfort in that solitude :)

 

After leaving the cabin, it's about a mile of flat hiking and then the uphill starts - 1000 ft. elevation gain on switchback trails that hug the side of the cliffs. I knew that there were going to be switchbacks, but I didn't envision 2 miles of them on the side of a cliff (my vision was more of trails meandering up through trees - whereas these trails were somewhat narrow with a cliff wall on one side and steep drop offs on the other - and with my fear of heights, this wasn't the highlight of my trip. Thankfully there was still no wind because as you make the turns at each switchback, you're in the open and had there been wind, I probably would have had to crawl on hands and knees around those turns. Surprisingly after hiking that long I wasn't struggling physically with the uphill climb - probably the adrenaline rush from fear ;)

 

After the switchbacks there was about a mile to go before the parking lot. It was such a great day - really glad we did the hike, and it ranks as probably the most scenic hike we've ever done, but not sure I could do it again due to the switchbacks. DH said it was the highlight of his trip - a toss up between that and the lava hike on the BI.

 

In answer to your questions ... you would probably find it OK as far as difficulty goes. There isn't a shuttle - park at the Halemau'u trailhead, walk the short distance to the 'hiker's pick up' spot and put out your thumb. There's a sign just ahead of the pick up spot, so if drivers see that, they'll know that you need a ride up for the hike.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Susan-M

[syr101]

Susan this sounds wonderful, know i can stop thinking about pipwaii trail. Just curious my wife and I are in are early 50's. Your not in your 20's telling us this isn't to bad of a hike, are you. Are you near our age. Where did you read reviews of this hike. Was it on trip advisor or CC. Thanks for your help.

[Susan-M]

You're welcome. It was an amazing experience ... we were just talking the other day about going back and doing it again (I think I can handle my fear of heights once more on that trail.) We were celebrating our 60th birthdays on that trip, so no worries about the perspective of a 20-something :)

 

One concern though ... the park ranger told us they don't recommend starting the hike after 10 a.m. just in case it takes longer than you expect (it gets dark early in Hawaii year round.) I don't think you would be able to get there early enough on your first day ... but what's your timing like on the second day?

 

This was the only review that I saw on TA ... it was posted just a couple of weeks before we did the hike, which helped because it gave us an idea of how much water to take. Note that they had very different weather than we did ... we were extremely lucky with clear skies, but more so with the lack of wind because it's usually really windy up there. Since we were there for 2 weeks, we were able to pick a day based on a good weather forecast ... if you did decide to do this hike, I would check the weather forecast the day before ... you really don't want to do it if you're going to be in a cloud the whole time as you'd miss all that great scenery. (Once when we drove to the summit a few years ago, it was completely socked in with clouds at the summit ... you wouldn't have even known that there was a crater there it was so bad.)

 

I also found this blog once we started to seriously consider doing the hike ... a lot of fun to read and some good photos (be sure to click on the photos for full screen views) - it was my inspiration to give the hike a try because I figured if he could run it both ways in one day, I could probably hike it.

 

One last thought ... if you can't fit it into this trip, you'll probably like Maui enough that you'll want to come back for a land trip ... then you can do this hike, Pipiwai and Waihee Ridge.

 

Good luck with your plans!

Edited October 21, 2014 by Susan-M

[syr101]

Susan - I don't like the idea of doing it the second day. On the first day, if I didn't have time to do the whole hike which part of the hike would you consider most exciting. Maybe going going in reverse would be more interesting to do some of the hike.

[Susan-M]

You could do a part of each hike.

 

The views into the crater are much more scenic from the summit, so I'd drive up there first and do a bit of Sliding Sands. It starts at the summit visitor's centre. Just be careful how far you hike down because it takes 2 or 3 times as long to hike back up ... you'll need water as well (you can refill your water bottle at the fountain at the summit visitor's centre). Long pants and a jacket are a good idea ... if it's windy you might even want a hat (something that covers your ears) and light gloves. It's usually about 30 degrees cooler at the summit than at sea level ... but a little warmer once you start hiking into the crater as it's sheltered.

 

After that, you could drive back down to the Halemau'u trailhead and walk the mile to the switchbacks ... then if you still have time you could walk down the switchbacks for a ways ... much different terrain there than at the summit.

 

Just need to be aware of the sunset time when you're there and be off the trails by then, as twilight is very short.

 

Sunset at the summit is a highlight for many (we haven't stayed for it) ... if that's of interest, you could switch the order of the hikes.