Mt Woodson Hike

Today Janel and I went hiking up Mt. Woodson, near Ramona, CA.  I had been up to the top, via the Lake Poway route, a couple years ago but Janel had not been here.  Today we did a loop that started on the east side of the mountain, along busy HWY 67.  To get to the top we walked about 2 miles on the service road to the top.  This was a steep slog and we were glad we could take a different way down.  The path down was about 4.5 miles long.

There are many radio towers on the top, which doesn't make it the most appealing summit around.  However, the top has some pretty good views although it was a bit hazy today with a storm system moving in from the north.  There are some massive boulders on Mt. Woodson.  One of these boulders has split appart to form a diving board type protrusion pictures above.  There are also a number of Coulter Pines and Incense Cedars on top of this 3,000 ft peak.

Pictures from today's hike can be found here.

Day 13. Maui

We awoke at 4:15 AM and arrived at the visitor’s center near the summit of Haleakalā at 5:45 AM, an hour before sunrise. The guidebook (Maui Revealed) wasn’t kidding when it said to arrive an hour before sunrise to get a parking spot at the summit. We didn’t get a spot at the summit and there were only about six cars behind us that were able to get a spot at the visitors center. While I stayed warm in the car, Janel warmed up the camera by taking some pictures of lit-up communities on the coast. The area around the visitor center was quite crowded with people so we found the trailhead for the Sliding Sands Trail and walked about 2-minutes down that trail to find a fantastic vantage point with nobody around… helps to look at the map if you want to get away from people. The morning was chilly (the ground was white with frost) but at least it was calm. The sky was clear with clouds below us. The sun did rise (hasn’t failed us yet) and it was pretty spectacular to see it basically rise out of the clouds. Janel and I both agreed it was worth getting up early to see.

After revisiting the summit and taking some more photos we headed down the mountain. On the way back to the hotel we attended church at Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Makawao. It was a nice service with one of the hymns played with a harmonica.

After a lousy breakfast and packing at the hotel we headed over to the west coast. We did our final snorkeling at Po’olenalena Beach (aka. Paipu, Pepeiaolepo, Loves, or Keauhou Beach), where we had snorkeled on our third day on Maui. The snorkeling was pretty good on the north end of the beach but partly cloudy conditions made things kind of chilly. After lounging on the beach for a while we returned the snorkeling gear we had rented and did some gift shopping (almost everything is open here on Christmas).

After an early supper at Big Wave Café we took a walk on the boardwalk at Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge. Not too much to see besides salt-flats and a decent sunset.
Since our flight wasn’t until 11:20 PM we had a lot of time to spare so we went to the theater and watched “Little Fockers”. Pretty funny movie.

The flight home was uneventful, although we didn’t get as much sleep as we had hoped.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable trip. I’m not sure that we had a favorite island but we definitely didn’t see everything there was to see. I guess that gives us a good excuse to go back again someday.

Pictures from today can be found here.

Day 12. Maui

We covered a lot of ground today after an early morning start. Several stops were made along the Hana Highway to look at waterfalls. Falls we stopped for included two small ones at Pua’a Ka’a State Park, Wailua Iki, Haipua’ena Falls, and Upper Puohokamoa Falls. There were several other waterfalls that we passed up along the way… there is a lot to see on this road.

Since we were relatively close to Haleakalā we decided to drive to the 10,023 ft summit. Unfortunately, the mountain was socked in with clouds and we couldn’t see much of anything. We decided that tomorrow morning we’d get up early and take in the famous sunrise on Haleakala, which would be a unique way to celebrate Christmas.

After heading back down the mountain and checking into the Maui Seaside Hotel in Kahului we headed over to the west coast to do some late afternoon snorkeling at Palauea Beach (aka. White Rock). Unfortunately, my snorkeling mask malfunctioned and so I didn’t get a chance to do any snorkeling. However, Janel reported that the visibility was rather poor with few fish, so I didn’t miss much. The waves here were small but were fun to do some body surfing on.

For supper we got take-out at Da Kitchen and went to bed early in anticipation of an early start to Haleakalā in the morning.

Pictures from today can be found here.